After an outstanding morning at the Tokyo Aquatic Centre, courtesy of the Australian Swim Team, the Australian divers stepped up to the plate.

In their chance to capture the aquatic spotlight, Esther Qin and Anabelle Smith took to the boards in the Women's 3m Springboard semi-final looking to secure their position in Sunday's 12-person final. 

Smith started off strong with her forward three-and-a-half for 65.10 points, shaking off her preliminary performance that put her in danger of not qualifying for the semi-final. Her third round dive a back two-and-a-half pike split the judging panel receiving scores from five-and-a-half through to seven.  

In the penultimate round four, a minor mistake on her hurdle caused Smith a restart resulting in a two-point deduction from each judge. That error resulted in the Victorian sliding from ninth to 14^th. Even with a solid final dive, an inward two-and-a-half pike, the deficit was too much for Smith to overcome dashing her chance at an individual Olympic final. 

Esther Qin kicked-off her competition with a bang with not a single judge giving a score less than seven-and-a-half on her first-round dive. Qin put on a display of consistency through her remaining four rounds finishing with a final score of 309.15. 

The list secured Qin's position in Sunday's Women's 3m Springboard final, the first final for the Australian Diving Team at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, and second for Qin in her Olympic history. 

But it was almost disaster for Qin who clipped the board with her feet in the warm-up of her event. 

"My inward in warmup I hit the board," Qin said.  

"I got so stressed I thought ‘what am I going to do, should I change or just be normal', I was really stressed." 

"I kept asking my coach ‘what should I do? I don't want to hit again'." 

Lucky for the springboard diver her inward two-and-a-half pike went off without a hitch as her highest scoring dive of the competition. 

In what came as a shock to onlookers, Canada's Pamela Ware, who finished fourth in the preliminary, botched her approach and fell into the water on her final round, unable to complete her dive.  

As with the preliminary, the top three positions went to Shi Tingmao, Wang Han of China, and Jennifer Abel of Canada respectively. 

Esther Qin will dive in the Women's 3m Springboard final set to begin at 4:00pm (AEST) at the Tokyo Aquatic Centre. 

Courtesy Australian Olympic Committee