Tom Daley confessed that the wait to see if he and his dive partner, Dan Goodfellow, had secured a bronze medal in the synchronised 10m platform competition “felt like an eternity”.
After third place was confirmed in an event in which Daley finished fourth at London 2012, the 22-year-old said he could now relax and target gold in the individual event next week.
“We stood there and knew we had done a good dive and I said to Dan, ‘Oh my God I don’t know if we have done enough,’” said Daley, after the pair confirmed bronze with the very last dive of the competition.
“We were just waiting and waiting for replay after replay and then it came up. I pounced on Dan and I don’t think he was quite ready for it and before we knew it we are in for a top-bombing seventh dive.”
Daley said that now he had a bronze medal round his neck, making him the first British diver ever to win multiple Olympic medals, he could relax and target gold in his individual event next week.
“Going into the individual now, I’ve got an Olympic medal and to share that moment with Dan was incredible. They’re really heavy, a lot heavier than London. It’s an amazing experience. I’ve taken the pressure off myself now,” said Daley, who has been diving with the 19-year-old Goodfellow only since October.
“I’ve got an Olympic medal and now I can go into that individual competition in the best frame of mind possible. Now I want to go and get a gold medal. It’s given me a taste of it and I want to go and get some more.”
Daley, who moved in with Goodfellow six weeks before the Olympics as part of their preparations, said that an element of their motivation was revenge for narrowly losing to the German pair with whom they were tussling for bronze at the European Championships.
“We knew we had a shot at winning a medal but we have been together only since October, we’re a new partnership and originally we didn’t even expect to qualify for the Olympics,” said Daley.
“The Germans pipped us to gold in the European Championships and we didn’t want to let that happen again.”
Daley will now move out of the Olympic Village, where he had also been sharing with Goodfellow, in order to clear his head ahead of Friday week’s individual 10m platform. One of his main rivals will be the Chinese Chen Aisen, who won gold here with Lin Yue, and longtime rival Qiu Bo.
“I’m going to be moving out of the village for five days to get away from everything, just give my head a little bit of a rest, give my body a little bit of a rest, then come back into it about three or four days before my competition,” said Daley.
“I’m always going to be training in this pool but get away to give myself a bit of a rest. And then I’m going to be going into that individual competition giving it my best shot.”
