GB 14 Year-Old Tom Daley Finishes 7th as Australia's Mitcham Snatches Gold from Zhou of China

by Christina 123 | August 21, 2008 at 03:04 pm

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Tom Daley has finished seventh in his event on the 10m platform today as Australia's Matthew Mitcham made some gasp-inspiring perfect dives to snatch victory from the jaws of crowd favourite, Zhou of China.

Daley told TV reporters, "I am glad it is a non-Chinese person who has won Gold." - A reference to the Chinese hitherto clean sweep in the Diving events.

' rel="nofollow">http://news.bbc.co.uk/...mpics/diving/7578760.stm"] Australia's Matthew Mitcham produced a near perfect final dive to win 10m platform gold and deny the Chinese a clean sweep of the diving medals.

China's Zhou Luxin botched his final dive to open the door for Mitcham who scored a massive 112.10 points to finish four ahead of Zhou on 537.95.
Russian world champion Gleb Galperin took the bronze with 525.80 points.
Britain's 14-year-old Tom Daley was fourth after the first dive and finished a creditable seventh overall.
The Plymouth schoolboy opened with his most difficult dive, an inward 2.5 somersaults with 1.5 twists and scored an impressive 81.60. I've got two days off, then it's back in the pool and training for the World Junior Championships
Tom Daley
Four more solid dives followed but Daley slipped to sixth going into the final round and under-rotated his reverse 3.5 somersaults in tuck to score 64.60 and drop a place

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Britain's precocious boy wonder diver, 14 year-old school boy from Plymouth, Tom Daley has a second bash tomorrow (Friday) in the Men's individual diving preliminaries, scheduled for the evening, as his diving partner in the synchronised diving, Blake Aldridge flies home to Southhampton.

The pair fell out in acrimony just as they were about to finish eighth out of eighth, mostly because of the disparity in their personality. Aldridge, fourteen years Tom's elder, is laid back and wanted to chat to his mother on his mobile (cell) phone just before the event, which got on the nerves of highly-strung Tom, who gets irritable and tense before a major event.

Alridge, possibly resentful at playing second fiddle to Tom in the media, blamed the pair's poor marks on Tom, which has left a frosty atmosphere between them.

Tom's major obstacle is his nerves, and if he can control them, perhaps his shining talent can shine through this time round.

Having made his debut in the 10m synchronised event last week, with partner Blake Aldridge, the 14-year-old features in the evening session of preliminaries for the 10m platform.

There was fall-out post competition when Aldridge criticised the youngster for failing to focus in the wake of huge media hype. Yet it was Aldridge who came under fire from the press as he was filmed on the phone to his mum whilst waiting to dive.

Since the incident the pair have settled their differences, allowing Daley to concentrated on his individual event.

The Plymouth teenager hopes he has now conquered his nerves and can better his seventh position in the synchro after admitting anxiety affected his first Olympic performance.