Platform, Men

There was some concern amongst British diving enthusiasts whether Tom Daley’s fame and subsequent television appearances would affect his performances since his bronze medal in 2012m but any worries those fans had were ill-founded as Daley finished third in the 2015 World Championship and won the newly instituted team gold medal with Rebecca Gallantree. He also won the European Championship 10-metre gold medal in 2016 and the 3-metre mixed synchronised gold, as well as the 2014 Commonwealth Games platform gold medal. Despite being just 22 years of age, Daley was competing in his third Olympics, and had an impressive record coming into the Games, having won 14 medals from the 16 events he had contested during the calendar year.

At the 2012 London Games, Daley finished third behind gold medal winner David Boudia of the USA and China’s Qiu Bo. Those two men also finished ahead of Daley at the 2015 World Championships, but this time Qiu Bo won gold and Boudia had to settle for silver, which was the same result in Barcelona two years earlier and was the fourth time the American had won a World Championship silver medal. But, having already won the 10-metre synchronised silver in Rio, Daley was one to beat, along with the two Chinese divers Qiu Bo and Chen Aisen.

In the preliminaries, it was Daley who gave an outstanding series of six dives and his total of 571.85 would have won the gold medal in Beijing and London. Daley’s worst dive was 88.00 whilst his best of 103.60 was the best of the day’s 168 dives. In total he received three 10s. The two Chinese divers were second and third best qualifiers while David Boudia was 75.40 points behind Daley in fourth.

If Daley’s qualifying dives were sensational, then his semi-final dives were disastrous as he finished last of the 18 divers and failed to make the final 12. He dived to near perfection the previous day; now he was more than 168 points behind his preliminary round total and three dives of just 54.00, 47.25 and 50.40 were not the dives of a champion. As expected Qiu Bo and Chen Aisen topped the semi-final scores with Chen 55.20 points ahead of his compatriot, after Qiu Bo’s disappointing 56.10 on his third dive. David Boudia only managed to qualify in tenth place after a final dive of 88.20. Mexico’s Iván Garcia qualified as third best and only 7.15 points behind Qui Bo.

As the scores did not carry forward the 12 finalists started on level terms and, true to form Chen Aisen, opened with a 96.90 with Qiu Bo close behind on 94.75. Disaster struck for Bo in his next dive, however, and was sent tumbling down the scoreboard with a 47.25. David Boudia took the lead ahead of Chen, but then Chinese diver showed his class with three dives in excess of 100, including a final dive of 108.00. The race was on for second place and Qiu Bo pulled himself back into medal contention with two dives of 102.00 or more, but then let it slip with a 47.50. It was left to America’s Boudia and another Mexican, Germán Sánchez, who had been diving consistently throughout the final, to decide which won silver and which won bronze. After a poor final dive from Boudia, Sanchez knew what he had to do on his final dive and he secured the silver medal with a 91.20, but was more than 52 points behind the champion Chen Aisen, with Qui Bo a disappointing sixth, despite getting a 10 from all seven judges for his third dive, a reverse three and a half somersaults. This was the final event of the diving competition, and Aisen’s victory meant China had won seven of the eight gold medals on offer in Rio.