Laugher wins gold as Scots break records

GOLD COAST, Apr 11 (AFP): England's Jack Laugher gave a dominant performance to defend his Commonwealth Games one-metre springboard title on the Gold Coast on Wednesday.

Earlier, Esther Qin and Georgia Sheehan snatched the women's three-metre synchro gold after a fellow Aussie pair crashed from first place to last with a botched final dive.

The 23-year-old Rio Olympic silver medallist on the three-metre board, led from wire-to-wire throughout the six rounds to tally 438.00 points and win gold with some ease.

Australia's James Connor took silver with 412.45 points.

Scotland's James Heatly finished with bronze on 399.25 points to become his country's first Commonwealth diving medallist since his late grandfather Peter Heatly won gold at the 1958 Cardiff Games.

"It was difficult to come here as the defending champion," said Laugher.

Laugher's top-scoring dives were 76.50 for an inward 2-1/2 somersaults and his lead-off back 2-1/2 somersaults dive which netted 75.00 from the judges.

"It was a really good score, I was 440, almost a PB but I didn't quite hit anything, everything was really good, the tops were fantastic and I felt really good going out there," Laugher said.

"But my entries were a little bit shaky. I put that down to a little bit of nerves, trying to defend the title, also being outdoors, all those different pressures, but I'm really happy with my overall performance."