Keighley’s Jenny Cowen was the Great Britain team’s toast of Turin after impressing in the European Diving Championships last weekend.

The 19-year-old City of Leeds member (pictured), who was a late call-up, notched a personal best in the ten-metre platform in finishing fourth – a position she repeated in the ten-metre synchro with Brooke Graddon.

The Cross Roads youngster’s chance to go to Italy came in bizarre circumstances when Monique Gladding hit her head on the concrete platform during the ten-metre synchronised event at a World Cup competition in Russia earlier this month.

Gladding was unconscious before she hit the water and spent almost 20 seconds submerged before being rescued.

The Sheffield-based diver lost half a litre of blood and was unresponsive for about four minutes but is now recovering from her head wound and whiplash.

Leeds Met University student Cowen, who was a former Parkside School pupil – said: “I found out I was going to Turin only five days beforehand and I was having a quiet training week – just doing simple things, bits and pieces.

“I was nervous and my aim was merely to make the finals – I certainly wasn’t expecting to finish fourth in either event.”

“My five dives in the final went well and the individual fourth was more pleasing but the synchro fourth was good too as Brooke lives in Plymouth and we don’t have the chance to train together. It was only our second competition together.

“My national coach was pleased with me.”

After progressing through the individual preliminaries in seventh position, Cowen, in her final year as a sports performance student, stepped up her game in the final to score 309.75 points, missing out on bronze by less than nine points.

Graddon and Cowen were Britain’s star performers on the third day of competition with their fourth place in the synchro, scoring consistently throughout to total 276.87 points.

Haworth’s Chloe Hurd, a clubmate of Cowen, finished 22nd in the preliminaries of the three-metre springboard with a score of 212.80 points and was 17th in the one-metre springboard with 214.10 points.

Cowen, who now hopes to be selected for a Grand Prix event in Canada next month, added: “My coach is thinking more about the 2016 Olympic Games for me, rather than 2012, as I will be more experienced then, but I haven’t a clue yet what I want to do as a career.”