David Boudia wins the men’s 10m platform

London – GBR, August 12, 2012: The entire United Kingdom was waiting for this final since the beginning of 2008. In January of that year, Thomas (Tom) Daley became the youngest winner ever of a British 10m platform senior title, at the age of… 13! He got immediately spotted as a bright and talented diver, and when two months later he won the European crown in his pet event, the experts were unanimous:

Beijing 2008 (in August that year) was still too early, but this “boy” would have a rendezvous with history in 2012, at his Olympic Games in London! Since then, many competitions have been contested and many successes have been collected, namely the 2009 world title in Rome (ITA), at 15. Today, August 11, millions of UK TV viewers and many thousands of spectators in the Aquatics Centre turned their attention to this “poster boy”: 15th of the heats (where he missed a back 3 ½ somersault, DD 3.6) and fourth of the semis, Daley certainly felt the weight of the pressure when preparing for his first dive.

Better than him in the semis, Bo Qiu (CHN), the 2011 world champion, Yue Lin (CHN), 2008 Olympic gold medallist in the synchronised 10m platform, and David Boudia (USA), silver medallist behind Qiu in Shanghai, were his main hurdles to reach glory. The semi-finals in the morning had been already impressive, with few mistakes and very high marks for the majority of the divers. The (negative) surprises at this stage were the elimination of 2008 Olympic champion Matthew Mitcham (AUS, 13th) and of the 2007 world champion Gleb Galperin (RUS, 16th), while in the heats, Malaysian Bryan Nickson (19th) and Peter Waterfield (GBR, 23rd) were not at their best level.

In the final, the most interesting one of the entire diving programme, Boudia emerged as the surprising winner, while Qiu got the silver and Daley conquered his so desired medal, a bronze! It was the second medal of the Games for Boudia (23 years old), after his success (bronze) in the synchronised event; moreover, it is the first individual male gold medal for US in Olympic diving since the triumph of Mark Lenzi in the 3m springboard event in 1992.

This success also meant the second defeat of China in London, after losing the gold in the men’s 3m springboard – all the remaining six diving events in the programme were won by divers of the Asian nation. Boudia’s main achievement until this gold medal was a silver medal in this event at the 2011 Worlds in Shanghai. For Great Britain, Daley’s medal comes after the 2004 silver award for the 10m synchronised pair Peter Waterfield and Leon Taylor, while an individual podium presence dated back to 1960 (bronze of Brian Phelps also in the 10m platform).

NF GOLD SILVER BRONZE TOTAL

*two (2) silver medals in the men’s 200m free and in the men’s 100m butterfly. —- FINA