Heading into the fifth and final round of the Women’s Synchronised 3m Springboard Final, the Australians were in third place, only 0.84 points behind American duo Kassidy Cook and Sarah Bacon, who were in the silver medal position.

However, Anabelle's unfortunate slip on take-off for the difficult dive (forward 2½ somersaults with 1 twist) sent her off course. She did remarkably well to complete the dive, but it cost the Australians points, and their final dive score of 48.60 dropped them to fifth place.

A disappointed Anabelle said she let her emotions out in the pool immediately.

“I screamed underwater,” she said. “I was hoping the cameras weren’t on the underwater cam right there.

“I think it'll take some time to sink in. I feel bad for letting the team down. I'm fine with myself, but you don't want to let someone down in the process. 

“Unfortunately, that is sport, and it just happened today on the big stage.”

Maddi said she was unaware of the mistake until they exited the pool.

“I could kind of see her when I did the end of my dive, but I didn’t see how 'mayday' it was,” she said. 

Maddi said that despite the disappointment, they were happy to have made it back to the Olympics together after winning the bronze medal at Rio 2016.

"We've been travelling all over the world this year for competitions." It's been so amazing,” Maddi said. 

“I was happy how we came into the competition. There's nothing more we could have done.”

Courtesy of Australian Olympic Committee