Toulson had finished in second position in the morning’s qualification behind Yulia Timoshinina, but the Russian’s first dive of the final immediately ended her hopes of gold.

Responding to Toulson’s opening dive which warranted 71.40 points, she was only able to scored 22.50 after a poorly executed entry to the water.

Toulson was now in pole position in the competition and the 15-year-old had two more solid dives, before producing the best dive of the event to secure gold, as her back 2½ somersault 1½ twists dive in pike position received 84.80 points from the judges.

It gave her an overall points total of 456.70, which saw her finish well clear of her nearest challenger, Russia's Anna Chuinyshena, who despite producing consistently good dives was only able to finish on 429.15 points.

It  proved good enough, though, to secure silver for the 14-year-old, with Germany’s Elena Wassen taking bronze on 410.40 after she took advantage of a low-scoring third dive by Britain’s Shanice Lobb to force her way onto the podium.

“I don’t like to concentrate on other people and what they’re doing so I just focus on myself and try not to get distracted," Toulson said after her victory.

“I got a good score to make the final and I was hoping for a medal but I didn’t think it would be gold.”

Toulson’s gold was the first to have been won by a non-Russian athlete in the Baku Aquatics Centre, as they had earlier added to their four synchronised swimming titles by winning gold and silver in the men’s one metre springboard competition.

Ilia Molchanov, who had qualified in first place for the final, led the competition after the first two of the six dives but had no answer to his teammate Nikita Shleikher in the later rounds.

Shleikher’s third and fourth dives scored 73.50 and 70.50 points, in comparison to Molchanov's 60.00 and 64.00, to move him into the lead ahead of the final dive of the competition.

He then maintained his composure to achieve an overall score of 543.80, with Molchanov finishing further back on 512.20 to win silver.

A hotly contested bronze medal was finally won by Britain’s James Heatly as he ended 10.25 points clear of fourth placed Frithjof Seidel of Germany.

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