Tom Daley wins world diving gold

Tom Daley, the 15-year-old British diver who made his debut at last year's Olympic Games in Beijing, became the country's first individual world diving champion yesterday when he took gold at the world championships in Rome.

Daley was lying in fourth position with two dives of the 10m platform event left, but a series of perfect dives, allied to mistakes from the competition, let him become the first British diver to win a world or Olympic gold in the sport.

"I thought I was going to come fourth and I would have been really happy with that. But then to come away with a medal was going to be great, then a gold medal was just insane," said Daley.

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING
Pete Nichols, the Guardian: "The Olympic champion, Australia's Matthew Mitcham, who had halted the Chinese clean sweep in Beijing, was in a close second and Zhou Luxin, the Olympic silver medallist was lying third. Daley, with only Mitcham and Bo diving after him, had to produce something special just to have a chance of bronze, and with the lowest degree of difficulty of the four leading divers, nothing less than perfect scores were required, and nothing less than perfect scores were delivered, Daley hitting eight 10s in his final two dives. Zhou failed on his fifth dive, Mitcham had two ordinary (by his high standards) final dives and Bo's poor entry on the last dive of the competition settled it."

Anita Lonsbrough, Daily Telegraph: "Daley, from Plymouth, was third in the 10-metres platform final heading into round six, but held his nerve to beat his older rivals, scoring 100.30 points with his final effort as his rivals faltered. His score of 539.85 was enough to beat pre-event favourite Qiu Bo into second place, with Olympic gold medallist Matt Mitcham fourth. It was a remarkable result for Daley, who finished seventh at the Olympics in Beijing last year. He immediately targeted a repeat performance on home territory at the Olympics in London in 2012."

Craig Lord, the Times: "Displaying the heights of composure common among some of the greats of his sport down the years, the schoolboy could hardly have found a better moment to execute a reverse 3 somersaults with tuck with such precision: soon after the scoreboard flashed up four perfect tens and three 9.5s. Total: 539.85. The bronze was his. The two divers left were Matthew Mitcham, the Olympic champion from Australia, and Bo Qui, the Chinese rival who had pipped Daley for the world junior crown last year. Both had a mind-boggling 2 somersaults with 2 twists ahead of them. The manoeuvre carries the highest degree of difficulty. As Daley would soon say: “It's crazy, they only needed 7.5s and 8s [out of ten] to stay ahead. I can't believe what I've just done.” Nor what the others had done."

Peter Nichols, Daily Mail: "Fourth place would have been a reasonable return for a diver who is still on a learning curve. He had, after all, to put behind him a disappointing Beijing Olympics, when he finished seventh in the individual 10m event and last in the 10m synchro following a messy disagreement with his diving partner, Blake Aldridge. But Daley dived beautifully in his semi-final here to qualify in third place then produced a stunning performance in the final. While he was calm in the news conference afterwards, his father Rob was so excited he posed as a member of the press and asked his son the all-important question: ‘Tom, can I give you a cuddle?’" ·