Defending champion Ilya Zakharov ceded his Olympic 3m springboard crown, bungling what had already looked a doomed title defence in the semi-final round at the Maria Lenk pool on Tuesday. The 25-year-old Russian, who had only just escaped elimination in Monday’s preliminary round, squandered his unexpected reprieve and completely blew hopes of fresh Olympic glory when he made an awful hash of his fourth-round forward 2-1/2 somersaults with 2 twists, ending up in a crumpled heap in the water, his effort declared a failed dive garnering zero points. Chinese world champion He Chao had already departed in the preliminary round and the semi-final almost spelled the end for Great Britain’s newly-crowned Olympic 3m synchro champion Jack Laugher, who just squeezed through to the evening’s final as last of the 12 qualifiers from the 18-strong semi and a performance he would prefer to forget.

Zakharov, last of the 18 qualifiers from the preliminary round, started brightly in the semi-final, his first two dives earning him a spot in the top four. But he faltered in the third series before his fourth-round disaster and could not find the inspiration to redeem the situation in the last two rounds, finishing an enormous 143.50 points behind top qualifier Cao Yuan of China. Laugher, bronze medallist at the 2015 FINA World Championships behind He Chao and Zakharov, led after the first series of dives but his morning went downhill after that and he ended up disconsolately facing the prospect of elimination.

As it turned out, he survived the cut, though almost 100 points behind Cao, an Olympic gold medallist at the 2012 London Games in the 10m synchro. Cao, world 3m synchro gold medallist in 2015 after moving from platform to springboard, finished top of the heap in both the preliminary and semi-final rounds yet even he had a poor second dive in the semi-final in a competition littered with errors. One mishap at least could be remedied – a whoop from the crowd disrupted Oliver Dingley’s dive in the third round and the Irishman was allowed to have a second go. He went on to qualify for the final in ninth place.

Cao led the way by almost 20 points, compiling 489.10 from his six semi-final dives.

Mexico’s Roman Pacheco, second in the preliminary round, was second again, this time scoring 469.70. European champion Evgeny Kuznetsov kept Russia in the hunt after the elimination of Zakharov and was just behind Pacheco on 468.35, with Mike Hixon of the US, a silver medallist in the 3m springboard last week, fourth on 467.25.

Yona Knight-Wisdom, the first Jamaican to qualify for a spot in an Olympic diving competition, reached the semi-final but finished 14th and out of the final on 381.40, eight points behind last qualifier Laugher (389.40). Just as well for Laugher, the scores revert to zero in the final.