Daley’s comeback to diving helps Team GB to secure gold at World Cup

Tom Daley helped Great Britain’s mixed team win the first gold medal at the Diving World Cup in Berlin.

Daley, Jack Laugher, Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix, and Scarlett Mew Jensen finished top with 461.15 points. Germany placed second with 430.75 points, and Italy came third with 419.60.

Daley performed two synchro dives and one solo on the 10m platform. His reverse three-and-a-half on the 10m scored 91.80, earning him the highest score of the event.

About the win Daley said, “For us, it’s about trying to maximise the weaker categories, which tend to be back and reverse, so Jack did a very solid back three-and-a-half dive in that first round”.​ He added: “I think that really helped set the standard. Everyone else was really solid and held it together”.​

Daley continued this impressive run, taking gold in the men’s synchronised 10m event with Noah Williams

Laugher explained, “For us as a team, it’s actually really easy to chop and change. We’ve got a lot of depth all over, men and women, platform and 3m”.​

Daley continued this impressive run, taking gold in the Men’s Synchronised 10m event with Noah Williams. The pair achieved 465 points, with Canada finishing second on 408.99, and Australia third with 402.57.

Prior to the event, Williams had been suffering from illness due to a bad reaction to some antibiotics. Daley called him a “warrior” for overcoming this set back.​

Laugher was then able to follow this up by securing gold in the Synchronised 3m Springboard with Anthony Harding. They achieved the excellent score of 465.00 with their highest scoring dive of 90.06 coming in the final round. Italy took the silver and the USA finished in third.

The only individual medal of the competition came from the teenage sensation Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix

Laugher attributed their win to their diving list and said: “It plays to a lot of our strengths, but at the same time we knew China weren’t going to be there so gold was up for grabs [which] can be quite difficult to deal with sometimes”.​

The only individual medal of the competition came from the teenage sensation Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix who placed second in the Women’s 10m Platform final. Her final score of 339.10 saw her finish ahead of Canada’s Caeli McKay, and the USA’s Delaney Schnell. China’s Quan Hongchan claimed the gold with the incredibly high score of 432.80.

Spendolini-Sirieix said she was, “inspired by Quan’s drive, by her perfection,” and she was “inching closer and closer to the Chinese – with every competition, it is a new possibility and new opportunity to do just that”.

Daley hopes to compete at the Paris Olympics later this year having recently qualified at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha. Daley will likely parter with Williams as Matty Lee, with whom he won gold at Tokyo, will miss this summer’s Olympics after undergoing spinal surgery.

Daley had taken a two-year break from diving after winning gold at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021

Lee wrote on Instagram, “A week ago today I went under for a discectomy on my L5/S1 disc in my spine. The surgery went well but my surgeon told me my nerve was very stuck and it took longer than expected to remove my bulging disc without damaging my nerve”. In his post he concluded: “In a weird way, I’ve been put out [of] my misery but it’s also forced me to look after myself and that’s what’s important”.​

Daley had taken a two-year break from diving after winning gold at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Realising he was not ready to move on from diving, the 29-year-old made the decision to return to competition last year.