Men’s 10m platform

Tuesday, 21 July 2009 21:21

Another sensation of these Championships happened today on the 10m Platform today: 15 year old Thomas Daley (GBR) won gold for the first time in his life at the World Championships.

Before synchronised diving was included on the programme of the World Championships (it happened for the first time in 1998 in Perth) the men's platform used to be the last event of every competition, as the most spectacular and exciting discipline. This was logical: the highest marks were more common to 10m men's platform, as were as the most complicated dives. Even the cleanest entries one could find here – on the 10m platform.

The difference between the 3m and the 10m is evident: on the springboard the result always depends upon a diver and upon the springboard as well. On the platform – the onus lies only upon the diver. For these reasons platform diving is considered more prestigious then any other event. As platform divers joke, “real athletes live here.”

Tuesday’s final confirmed this reputation to be true once again. Six divers of 12 had on their programmes a dive of 3.8 DD – the highest degree of difficulty that exists in diving. One of the competitors – Bryan Nickson (MAS) included on his list the unique 3.5 Inward pike. This dive is a kind of combination that requires ideal technique.

As for the marks, the first three “tens” reached in the semi-final went to Jose Guerra Oliva (CUB) for 407 C, but he wasn’t lucky enough to make the final and finished 16th. The winner at the Beijing Games - Matthew Mitcham (AUS) - got 10 for the same semi-final dive, but this was just a warm-up.

In the final, “10” was shown on the scoreboard 20 times. Qiu Bo (CHN) became the first, scoring more than 100 points for one dive in the fourth round. So did David Boudia (USA) in his fifth attempt and Sascha Klein (GER), Zhou Luxin (CHN) and Thomas Daley in the last round. Qiu Bo could be initially confident with his result (he was the best in the preliminaries and semis), but his last dive in the final was executed with a mistake. And of course nobody could predict that it would be Daley – the youngest competitor - who would show everybody “who the real diver is.” He got four highest marks for his 307 C and caught the world crown with a 7.65 point advantage over Qiu Bo.

Zhou Luxin came third to the podium just 1.05 ahead of Mitcham.

Speaking after the event, while thanking his mom and his coach and “everyone who helped [him]” Daley said he had made “so many sacrifices” to reach this level. “I can’t believe it! I came here to do my best, but getting on top is crazy, it is just crazy. Being the world champion is amazing!” At a certain moment of the Press Conference, a man stood up and while everyone thought it would be a journalist ready to ask another question to Daley, the man opened his arms and just said, “Oh, my son, come on to your dad!” Daley couldn’t retain from running to his father’s arms and put the “Union Jack” (the British flag) around his shoulders.

Diving legend Klaus Dibiasi (ITA), a spectator at the 2009 World Championships 10m final, expressed amazement at the quality of diving the competitors exhibited. “Any one of the top four divers could have been the winner,” he felt.