THEY SAY every cloud has a silver lining – well for Southampton diver Stacie Powell hers was far higher than just in the sky after crashing out of London 2012 at the first hurdle yesterday.

The 26-year-old diver was looking to make a splash in the Olympic Aquatics Centre in the 10m women’s platform, heading into the capital in good form having won the British title in June.

But it wasn’t to be as poor second dive cost Powell, her total from her five efforts only good enough for 20th and second reserve, with the top 18 going through to today’s semi-final. However the day wasn’t a complete waste as the morning before the competition Powell discovered a paper she had written for her PhD in astrophysics at the University of Cambridge is to be published, her work giving more clues as to how the Earth and stars were formed. So while she might have failed in the water, soaring with the stars wasn’t a bad consolation in Powell’s mind. “I was really pleased with the way I came back. With the second dive I kicked out just a fraction too early and it really cost me,” said Powell, who finished eighth at Beijing 2008. “Diving is such a brutal sport and split seconds can make all the difference and if I was tenth of a second later I would be in the semi-final, that is how tight it was.

“I was really pleased with my dives after that and I thought I came back well but I just left myself too much to do."

Full story in today's Daily Echo