• London 2012 - Diving

Daley takes diving bronze

Tom Daley led after five of the six dives © Getty Images

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Great Britain's Tom Daley rose to the occasion in the 10 metres platform diving at London 2012, but fell just short of gold and had to settle for bronze.

Daley led the competition after the penultimate round, but his final dive did not carry the same level of difficulty as his rivals', and so David Boudia of the USA (gold) and Qiu Bo of China (silver) managed to overhaul him.

In a dramatic climax to the competition, the top three were separated by just 0.15 points ahead of the last dives, with Daley on top - a remarkable turnaround after he only managed to scrape through the preliminary qualifying round in 15th place.

Daley made a laboured start to the final with a dismal opening dive - only to be allowed to take it again after complaining he had been put off by camera flashes in the crowd. He snatched his second chance, scoring 91.8, and that appeared to steady his nerves.

He peaked in the fourth round, notching up a mammoth score of 98.05 for his forward, four-and-a-half somersault, and followed that up with a 97.2 in the fifth. His overall total was 556.95; Qiu scored 566.85 and Boudia tallied 568.65.

"I gave it my best shot, I gave it absolutely everything," Daley told BBC Sport. "The retaken dive is one downside to having a home crowd. I can't wait to see my family and have a massive bundle! To be honest I was very nervous. I went in to it with a do-or-die mentality.

"I put everything into it. I was in first place going into the last round but didn't have the degree of difficulty I needed [to hold on for gold]. The main aim here was to get a medal. To see Alexei [Evangulov], the national performance director, happy... at the beginning of the year he was telling me I was fat! I've lost seven-and-a-half kilos. I've made so many changes and I can't wait to go and eat what I like. Olympic bronze medal - I can't believe it!"

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