This was a sublime Olympic performance from Tom Daley and Matty Lee. On a day of vertiginous pressure at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre the British pair took gold in the men’s synchronised 10m platform dive by 1.23 points from China’s world champions Cao Yuan and Chen Asien.
It was a victory sealed only as the last drop of spray from the final dive hit the water, prelude to a tortuous wait for confirmation that the Chinese pair’s final dive had been insufficiently brilliant to bridge the gap to Daley and Lee. As the scores flashed up there were shouts and leaps at the side of the pool, followed by a few moments, for Daley, of sitting there letting it all sink it.
Lee is diving in his first Games. A gold medal at Tokyo 2020 is a stunning achievement. For Daley the result means that 14 years, four Games and all manner of twists, turns and pikes on from his emergence as a kind of dive-boy curiosity, a prodigy of the UK Sport machine, he finally has gold to go with two bronzes. There were damp eyes above Daley’s mask on the podium as he stood with Lee to listen to the national anthem, both men looking drained but uncontainably happy.
In the end all it took was one moment of weakness in a relentless surge of six back-to-back high-wire dives, as the Chinese pair blinked at the midpoint. Daley and Lee were ruthless in response, retaining top spot despite a furious Chinese counterattack.
The British pair had applied pressure from their opening dive, turning their midway spot in the rota – the Chinese dived last – to their advantage. The first thing to note about the 10-metre platform is that 10 metres is very high. It might not sound it, but the board looked like a lonely ledge as Daley and Lee paused before the opening round, alone in all that air, ready for the first leap into a version of the future they had planned together for the past three years.
There were yelps and cheers as they hit the water, both men disappearing with the familiar thunk of a successful entry. The plan had been to start solidly, to prevent the Chinese pair opening a commanding lead. Cao Yuan and Chen Aisen were always the favourites here, the alpha dogs of this pool, with a sense of swagger and flash even in their walk to the board.
They produced a stunning opening dive. Daley and Lee were second in the first round. After which the dives just kept coming, an unceasing carousel without time to breathe or think. It is a kind of dive roulette, a moment simply to perform, to dive like nobody’s watching – except, of course, billions of people are, and every session, every break, every hand along the away is suddenly narrowing to this point.
Daley and Lee’s second dive was a back one and a half somersault with a half twist. They nailed it again. The numbers were good. The Chinese numbers, moments later, were sensational. At which point Daley and Lee experienced their one tremor of doubt. Their third dive was their weakest, the entry off. The Chinese pair seized the moment. Lee and Daley were 15 points off the lead.
It was here where things began to stir at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre, with its stands empty apart from a single shrill section of officials and support staff.
Diving is a strange sport in this regard. It is both loud and silent, a kind of emotional chiaroscuro, the spikes of boisterous excitement emerging from moments of total concentration. Its brilliance as a spectacle lies in the sight of those perfect human shapes being executed in a space humans really aren’t supposed to occupy at all, with no resistance other than gravity and that approaching blue.
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Lee and Daley nailed their fourth dive, a back three-and-a-half somersault. And then, from nowhere, the Chinese pair cracked. The execution was off, the timing gone, the pool drenched in spray. The numbers were crushingly low. With that Britain were six points in the lead and two dives from gold.
The British coach, Jane Figueiredo, said afterwards this had been the plan, to apply pressure and see how the Chinese pair dealt with it.
Daley’s and Lee’s last dive was nervelessly executed. Then came a terrible two minutes as the arena waited for the final act. The Chinese pair needed an impossible 102. They managed 101.52. That was it: gold for Daley and Lee. Aleksandr Bondar and Viktor Minibaev took bronze for ROC.
There will be talk that Daley has now erased some lingering stain on his record. This is to misunderstand the life of an athlete, and indeed to misunderstand the sport and Daley’s place in it. Diving is an impossibly high-stakes discipline, one that China has dominated through his lifetime.
Daley’s individual bronze at London 2012, for example, was a stunning performance after a poor first round and under crushing levels of pressure. The night of that early wobble Daley had walked through the mixed zone and faced a sceptical press, curious for a sniff of collapse from the poster boy. He smiled and said: “Don’t worry, this will be fine. I can do it.” Daley is a proper competitor. But that bronze took a piece out of him, as has his own public existence, the online taunts, the bereavement, the demands of living his personal life in public.
From here Daley has the chance for individual gold in the 10m platform. He will dive free of the pressure that has lingered over him since he was a very young boy, with the benefits and burden of resources funnelled his way, required to go on trips away from home that he hated, presented as a kind of medal-boy, glory in the bank, another product of the machine.
That demand has now been satisfied. Whatever happens from here, for one morning in Tokyo Daley and Lee were untouchable.