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Swain and Robinson-Baker: Finished seventh
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British diving's national performance director Steve Foley has claimed his charges 'are getting crucified' by the Olympic judges.
He made this controversial remark after 3m synchronised springboard pair of Nick Robinson-Baker and Ben Swain finished seventh out of eight in their final at the Water Cube on Wednesday.
But Foley thought their performance merited a far higher placing and was highly was critical of the scoring.
The Australian believes some teams are getting higher marks solely on reputation.
Great performance
"That was a great performance today and if you understand the judging better than me then you are an expert because I can't explain it," he said.
"We are getting crucified and I don't know why, I can't tell you that.
"The boys today missed one dive a little bit and they finished seventh.
"Some of the other teams missed two dives and they are above us. I think it is reputation.
"It is almost like, here are the big teams and here's where we're going to give our nines.
"To me they (Robinson-Baker and Swain) should have been right in the middle of going for medals and they didn't get a look in. They finished 10 or 12 points off a medal.
"I can't work it out. They dived better than that."
The British pair were joint third with the USA and Ukraine after round one's inward dive with pike but dropped to seventh after their second, before improving to fifth in the third round with a forward three-and-a-half somersault with pike.
But a poor fourth effort lost them valuable ground which they could not recover to finish in seventh place, just behind the German pairing of Pavlo Rozenberg and Sascha Klein and above Australians Scott Robertson and Robert Newberry.
Wang Feng and Qin Kai lifted the gold, making it a clean sweep of the men's and women's synchronised events for the host nation.
Speaking afterwards, Robinson-Baker was happy with the Sheffield-based pair's Olympic debut.
Brilliant performance
"We had a brilliant performance. We didn't put too many steps wrong," said the 21-year-old.
"We had a little bit of a judder on our fourth dive but other than we had a really good performance.
"We are really happy we competed and showed GB what we have in store for them."
Swain, 22, added: "I think we had a great performance. We both held it together as best we could.
"It is a big pressure event and it is our first Olympics. There is a lot to take from today but we are both absolutely moved and so proud of representing our country."
