Platform, Men

China’s Yang Jian and Cao Yuan were favourites for the individual platform title. Jian was the reigning world champion and Cao was the 2016 Rio springboard gold medallist. Britain’s Tom Daley was hoping to win a medal for the third consecutive Olympics and came to the Games as winner of the 2021 World Cup, held in the Tokyo Aquatics Centre.

Jian and Cao came through the preliminary round in first and second place with the 2019 World Championships bronze medalllst Oleksandr Bondar of the ROC third. Yang’s sixth and last dive was a forward 4.5 somersaults, which scored him 102.5 points. Tom Daley had a disastrous start, scoring just 56.10 on his first dive after all seven judges awarded him a meagre 5.5, and he was out of the top 18 qualifying places in 23rd. He clawed himself back into contention, however, and finished as the fourth highest scoring qualifier. He was hoping to win his second gold medal of the Games, having won the synchronised platform title with Matty Lee.

A lot of attention was pad to the new “wonder boy” of diving, 15-year-old Ukrainian Oleksiy Sereda, who stayed cool throughout the preliminaries to qualify for the semi-final in sixth place. He first rose to prominence in 2019 when he won the platform title at the European Championships when just aged 13, the sport’s youngest ever European champion.

It was much the same in the semi-final with the Chinese divers occupying the top two places, but with Cao first this time. The only surprise of the heat was Cao and Yang lying joint sixth after the opening dives with the Canadian Nathan Zsombor-Murray taking a slender lead from Bondar, who eventually qualified in third with Tom Daley fourth. As for Zsombor-Murray, he failed to qualify after finishing 13th.

In the final, Cao opened with a dive that scored 102.00, with Daley second and Yang third. Daley held the lead after his second and third dives with the Chinese divers alternatively occupying the silver and bronze medal positions. At the halfway stage, however, only 6.20 points separated the three men. The fourth round of dives was the one that effectively decided the outcome of the competition.

Daley made an error on entry into the water and slipped to third place while Cao went into the gold medal position. He held that lead going into the last round, and was 12.10 points of his fellow countryman. Yang’s final forward 4.5 somersaults with a degree of difficulty of 4.1, however, scored a massive 112.75 points to put pressure on Cao, who needed to score 100.65 to win. He gave an almost perfect back 2.5 somersaults with 2.5 twists to score 102.60 and capture the gold by just 1.95 points.

This event rounded off another successful diving competition for China, who won their seventh gold medal out of the eight available, and for Cao he made history as the first diver to win Olympic gold medals in three different events. He won the platform synchro in 2012, springboard individual at Rio, and now the individual platform title. Daley won a medal in his third consecutive Games and also became the first Briton to win four diving medals.