Melissa Wu and Alex Croak claimed Australia's second diving medal at the world championships in Shanghai before turning their attention to bridging the gap to the all-conquering Chinese team at next year's Olympics.
Melissa Wu and Alex Croak claimed Australia's second diving medal at the world championships in Shanghai before turning their attention to bridging the gap to the all-conquering Chinese team at next year's Olympics.
Wu and Croak finished strongly to take out the silver medal in the women's 10m synchronised platform on Monday night, adding to a 3m springboard bronze medal won by Sharleen Stratton and Anabelle Smith on Saturday.
The performance saw Australia surpass their diving performance at the Rome world championships in 2009, where a Matthew Mitcham bronze was the sole medal collected.
The pair scored 325.92 from their five dives to finish behind the dominant Chinese duo of Chen Ruolin and Hao Wang (362.58), with Germany (316.29) in third.
The pair said the result augured well for the 2012 London Games.
"We've been training really hard for that so to perform like that was great for us," Croak said.
"The worlds the year before an Olympics is one of the biggest you can compete in and it's the next biggest thing to the Olympics.
"It's a really good stepping stone for us and we made the most of the opportunity we had here to best prepare us for London."
Based on the result so far from this week's diving in Shanghai, the rest of the world will be competing for silver behind China in most diving events in London.
The hosts have taken all four of the gold medals on offer so far, but Wu believed Australia was edging closer.
"We're always training hard trying to improve, it's a pretty hard gap to try and bridge but I think we're getting a little bit closer," Wu said.
Croak will compete in the individual platform along with Brittany Broben starting Wednesday, while Wu missed out on a solo berth after a campaign hampered by injuries.
The pair were back in the field early before scoring high with their third dive, a 3 1/2 somersault tuck, to move into third place.
They moved into second with an impressive penultimate dive before sealing second spot on the podium behind the clinical Chinese duo with their final dive.
Liam Fitzgibbon
AAP
