Devon's Olympic diver Tonia Couch secured the best result of her career with bronze-medal winning performances at the FINA Diving Grand Prix in Florida at the weekend.

Couch, from Plymouth, had never won an international medal before the event in Fort Lauderdale, but she nailed two on the same day while competing for Great Britain.

The 20-year-old put in a bravura performance in the keenly-contested women's 10 metre individual platform final, finishing third behind two Chinese divers last Saturday.

A couple of hours later Couch was on the podium again, this time alongside 10m platform synchro partner and former Plymouth Diving team-mate Sarah Barrow.

Couch totalled 334.25 points in the individual and then garnered 293.04 with fellow Plymothian Barrow in the synchro showdown.

After just missing out on a podium place at the recent World Series in Mexico, a delighted Couch said: "I'd never won an international medal before and now I've got two in one day, so I'm over the moon.

"I'd come fourth at Mexico with 346 points, which is my best result in terms of points this year, but to come in the top three in an event as tough as this one – I'm so much happier with that."

Couch admitted that she had been forced to battle to reach the final, finishing in the last qualifying place.

"In the preliminaries, I had a bit of a nightmare. I came 12th and just made the semi, where you have to come in the top three. And I came third, so I was happier with that.

"In the final I stepped it up and scored 37 more points and ended in third with the Chinese first and second.

"I was really pleased with the score, especially as it was an outdoor pool, so it made the diving pretty tough.

"At the Olympics, I was the European top female and I couldn't believe it then. I'm also top at this event — it's a pretty scary feeling."

China's Sinuo Ma (380.25) and Jiao Liu (347.40) took gold and silver in the individual, with Couch beating Canada's Carol- Ann Ware (322.50) to the final podium place.

China's synchro duo Jiaming Zhu and Shengping Wu secured gold (350.88), with Mary-Beth Dunnichay and Haley Ishimatsu (311.64) of the United States claiming silver and the previously untried partnership team of Couch and Barrow not far behind.

"Sarah and I were pleased with third," added Couch. "We know we have a lot of work to do when we get home but, for our first competition together, we were really happy, although we were pretty nervous going into the event. We hadn't done synchro since 2008."