Tonia Couch criticises GB diving chief Alexei Evangulov

By Brent Pilnick BBC Sport at the Plymouth Life Centre Tonia Couch has criticised British Diving's performance director Alexei Evangulov for the way he handled the decision not to pick her for the individual 10m event at London 2012.

Couch lost an appeal against the decision on Thursday.

"The manager didn't tell me himself," the 23-year-old told BBC Sport.

"Communication was needed and we didn't have any of that. Hopefully in the future he's learnt his lesson and maybe we'll start communicating."

Couch, who is back in training in her home town of Plymouth, considered appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) but instead is concentrating on the 10m synchro pairs, for which she has been selected with partner Sarah Barrow.

They are the reigning European champions after winning the first female British gold medal for 74 years and have also been successful at the World Series and the World Cup.

Such a run of form makes them strong medal contenders for London, although Couch admitted the dispute over her non-selection for the individual event will leave a sour taste.

"Yes, I'm absolutely gutted, but there's nothing I can do.

"We already got told it was a 'no' from the boss and then we got told it was a 'no' again on the appeal," she added.

"We didn't want to take it any further because I just want to focus on what I have to do and put everything else to one side.

"We can do really well, we've had a good year, but there's six people fighting for those three medals so it's going to be tough.

"We'll have to see how it goes on the day, our training's going really well, we got a British record at the nationals, so fingers crossed that everything goes into London and we do well."