Tom Daley wins 10m diving bronze at Tokyo 2020 to collect his fourth Olympic medal

Daley’s first dive of six immediately put him among the leaders and he stayed there throughout the competition to match the bronze he won at London 2012

One dive was all it took. Almost two weeks had passed since Tom Daley won synchro gold with Matty Lee, enough time to knit a medal pouch and a fetching cardigan that has no place in the Tokyo heat. But in a flash and a gentle splash he announced himself as a serious medal threat in the men’s 10m final, and he never looked back.

Daley’s opening dive drew nines from the judges and put a score of 98.60 on the board, enough for second place behind China’s Cao Yuan. After three dives Daley led, narrowly, and only his failure to contain the splash of his fourth hurt a near-faultless display as he settled for bronze behind the immaculate winner Cao and his teammate Yang Jian.

“I am so happy that this Olympics has gone the way it has,” said the 27-year-old Daley. “I feel like a different athlete, I feel like I’ve been through so many different things over the years. At the end of May, I didn’t even know if I was going to make it to these Games. I tore my meniscus and had knee surgery, I always dreamed I’d be fit enough to come back and dive at these Olympics.

“If someone had told me I was going to win a gold and a bronze, I probably would have laughed in their face.”

Daley brought his A-game. In between dives as his rivals hit the hot tub, he sat in a chair draped in a union jack towel and stared straight ahead. Then he stretched before the walk up the concrete stairs, one he has done thousands of times but which must tingle the nerves all alone in an Olympic final.

His opening dive, reverse three-and-a-half somersaults, put him into second place and he followed it with successive 91s to lead the standings at the halfway point, with a total score of 281.60 and a paper-thin lead of 0.80 over Cao.

But the fourth dive was telling and brought Daley’s first and only mistake of note, as a secondary splash erupted from beneath the surface. A score of 80.50 slipped him back to third, with Cao earning 97.20 for the second successive dive to gain some breathing room.

Daley gathered himself to move clear of the chasing pack and by his sixth and final dive bronze was virtually assured, with the chance of more should the pressure provoke an unlikely mistake from one of the two Chinese frontrunners.

After Daley’s final dive, scoring 91.80, it was left to a shootout between Cao and Yang. Yang went first and celebrated as he nailed his forward four-and-a-half somersaults for a monstrous 112.75 – a world record score – putting the heat on his teammate. But Cao responded brilliantly, and 102.60 was enough to edge gold.

Cao finished on 582.35, with Yang totalling 580.40 and Daley scoring 548.25, well clear of Russia’s Aleksandr Bondar in fourth with 514.50.

“Once you’re in the final, that’s what I love,” said Daley, who breezed through qualifying. “I love competition when it counts, there was great competition with the two Chinese divers, they just pulled away when I missed it a little bit on the fourth dive.”

A few minutes later the medalists were back out in full training tracksuits to take to the podium. Daley will need an order of fresh yarn; he has another medal to stow.