On the 3m springboard, Yasmin Harper and Scarlett Mew Jensen are flawlessly in synch – tucking, piking and somersaulting their way to stardom.
But away from the pool, it is Harper’s Yin to Mew Jensen's Yang that makes the pair an outstanding combination.
The 23 and 22-year-old soared to silver at the World Aquatics Championships at Fukuoka 2023 and followed up with a stunning Olympic bronze for Team GB at Paris 2024.
And when it comes to competition time, they have a secret weapon setting them apart from the rest of the field – Harper's very own in-house nail salon.
With success in China and Japan after just four months of training together, Mew-Jensen vowed the pair will not dive in competition without some good luck manicure preparation.
World Championships whirlwind
The newfound duo became a pair by chance when Harper stepped in for the injured Desharne Bent-Ashmeil early last year.
They took their first competition in April by storm, claiming gold at the Diving World Cup in China with little to no training.
And following a whirlwind silver in Japan and a fourth-place finish at the Diving World Cup Super Final in Berlin, all eyes are on taking the same quota spot they secured for Paris 2024.
“I still feel I’ve not come down from it,” Mew Jensen said. “It still feels very surreal and bizarre. We didn’t have much time in between Worlds and Berlin so we had to just keep the momentum going.
“When I came home I cried when I saw my parents. It was a lot of emotion, we couldn’t really think about the medal afterwards because we had to keep level-headed for the individual two days later.
“It was such a last-minute thing, when we were competing earlier in the year in China and in Canada, I was like “thanks Yas for doing me a favour,” because Desharne was injured and it was this really temporary thing.
“In Singapore we were training there for 10 days and that was as much synchro as we’d ever done together so when we went to Japan it just fused and it felt great, it felt easy and effortless.”
Harper added: “For me as well because I was the one stepping into this and replacing Desharne it was important for me to show that I deserve to be in the pair and I didn’t want to let Scarlett down.
“You shouldn’t think about those things in synchro but it’s always in the back of your mind, when it’s a team thing you want to do well not just for yourself but for other people as well.
“I think we definitely now can see that we want to train hard to get a medal at the Olympics, that would be so amazing.
Bolzano – foundations for friendship
Behind every sporting partnership there are personalities to balance and traits to combine, and Harper and Mew Jensen have a winning blend.
Harper, who came to the sport in 2014, teamed up with Mew Jensen for a year in 2017 for synchro when the pair were both juniors.
And it did not take long for the partnership to blossom five years later as Harper’s cool calm and collected nature complimented Mew Jensen's spirited exuberance.
Mew Jensen said: “There was a funny competition in Bolzano in 2017 which was our first senior event and we ended up winning.
“I don’t know how because 30 minutes beforehand Yas scraped her whole shin down the board and she didn’t even cry.
“This basically sums up our relationship because I was the one crying.
“I was just on the chair whilst our coach was bandaging my leg up so we could just go and do the event,” Harper added. “And then we won.”
“But then it got worse because I got called in for doping testing and I had no ID on me so Scarlett had to cycle back to the hotel and come back. It was a whole ordeal."
Nailing the dives
When Paris 2024 rolled around, athletes from across the world marvelled at the Eiffel Tower and the Champs-Élysées.
They made trips to the Louvre and saw the city’s views from the Montparnasse Tower.
But there was one particular location Harper and Mew Jensen could definitely be found queueing for – the Olympic Village’s very own nail parlour.
For Fukuoka, Harper gelled a bright orange design to match the pair’s costumes and a month later in Berlin, they opted for a purple shimmer to give them the best chance in the pool.
In Paris, a dramatic final round in the women's 3m springboard synchro saw the pair take bronze with a total score of 302.28 - the first Olympic medal in women's diving for 64 years.
Harper said: “I can’t dive in a competition without having my nails done and it’s our thing now, I feel like now we’re not going to be able to not do it.
“We had a new set for Berlin but the orange in Japan was my favourite.
“And we were so busy in Fukuoka, we only had time to do them for ourselves.
“We’ve got to start brainstorming,” Mew Jensen said. "We’ve got to start looking on Pinterest already for what we want for our next events.
“We had a little lightning bolt on one of our fingers in Berlin, it was purple and shimmery."
And after British National Diving Cup victory to round off an incredible 2023 and bringing home a brilliant Olympic bronze, the duo are now aptly nailing every competition that comes their way.
Harper jokingly added: "We’ve got to keep the secret of it now because our secret to our success is the nails.”
Sportsbeat 2024