Katura Horton-Perinchief has promised to put pressure on her uncle, Sports Minister Randy Horton, to help provide diving facilities in her homeland of Bermuda.

The teenager is the Island's only representative in the sport and was making her international debut at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester.

Though she made the final of the three metre springboard event and the semi-final of the one metre event, Horton-Perinchief was a long way behind the likes of competitors from Australia and England.

Part of that reason may be because she has to do all her training in the US, away from her family and friends, because there are no boards in Bermuda - a fact the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) questioned during an interview about the diver with The Royal Gazette.

That fact leads to another problem - there is no one either ahead of her or behind her ready to step into her shoes.

Horton-Perinichief said that latter point was a constant source of disappointment to her.

"As much as I love being the only one I would love to have some team-mates," she said. "Also (being without facilities) keeps me in Texas a lot longer because I have to train there. I would love to come home and train but if there are no facilities I don't really have a choice."

Asked if she planned to speak to Minister Horton, who has been in Manchester on both official and family business, she said forthrightly: "Oh yes, definitely, that will come."

As for her performance on Saturday night in the three metre event won by Irina Lashko of Australia, a two-time gold medal winner following her success in the one metre competition, Horton-Perinchief admitted to being disappointed.

She scored 412.44 for her five final dives, plus five in the morning's preliminaries to come tenth out of ten competitors. Lashko, by comparison, scored 594.51. Horton-Perinchief's nearest competitor was Anna Thomas of New Zealand who notched 428.08.

Horton-Perinchief said she had not been checking on the performance of Thomas, who, if she had had a bad final dive and the Bermudian a good one, may have been able to overhaul her.

"I wasn't even watching the scores," she said. "I knew I wasn't doing that well but I just wanted to finish strong."