Ireland’s first Olympic female diver Tanya Watson qualifies for semi-finals

The 19 year-old will compete again tomorrow.

Huge congrats are in order for Irish diver Tanya Watson who has qualified for the 10m platform semi-finals at the Tokyo Olympics. Tanya also has the honour of being the first Irish female diver to make it to the Olympics. The 19 year-old needed to make the top-18 in order to progress into the semi-finals. She ended up securing her place by coming in 16th with a score of 289.4 from five dives. Watson's opening dive scored the highest mark of 62.4. Team Ireland said on Twitter that it was "one of Tanya's hardest dives today". Tomorrow's semi-finals take place at 2 am Irish time. The top 12 scorers will then advance to the finals which take place later that day. China's Chen Yuxi, who already has a gold medal under her belt from the 10m synchro, performed the best out of everyone in the qualification round. Regardless of tomorrow's result, Tanya has already made history by being the first female Irish diver to make it to the Olympics. The teenager secured her place a few months ago at the FNA Diving World Cup, also in Tokyo, where she finished in 16th place during the women's 10m platform round. She scored 271.58 points, which was just slightly off from her personal best at the time. Recently, Tanya spoke to the Irish Examiner about the role her faith plays in her career. She said: "I was about 16 when I started competing internationally and it was around then that my faith really solidified for me. "It's very hard in sport because you are often defined by your performance. It's so hard to bring yourself out of that state of feeling like a failure because I've had a bad day and, for me, my faith is very important because God loves me, no matter what." Photos by Ramsey Cardy via Sportsfile.