Tom Daley’s Olympic highs and lows

Tom Daley won a bronze Olympic medal for his 10m diving on Saturday night, to tumultuous applause from the crowd.

The young British athlete has been under a lot of pressure as huge expectation was placed on him to win medals before the Olympics even started.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy interviewed the rising star, and now that he has become an Olympic medallist asked him what it was like to compete in that final event?

“It’s like a pressure cooker inside the pool – because of all the atmosphere, the cheers and everything else.

“The support of the British public has been incredible over the past few weeks – the way the country has embraced the Olympic Games is beyond anything I could have expected.”

Tom admitted that he was “gutted” not to get a medal in the synchronised dives earlier in the Games where his pairing with fellow diver Peter Waterfield finished a frustrating fourth. But the experience gave him “that extra willpower and oomph to prove a point that I could actually win an Olympic medal.”

Tom, like all athletes, is acutely aware of his own physical development and explains that a diver normally peaks around the age of 22 to 24 years of old – which means Tom, now just 18 years old, should be well placed for the next Olympic games in 2016.

“For me, my peak performance should be Rio so I’m looking forwards to that now,” he said.

“I’ve learned all the dives I need to know, so it’s just four more years of doing the dives that I’ve been doing for the last two years.”

And has the fame gone to his head? With the rest of his team being celebrated as sporting stars (and including the odd bit of singing), what does the future hold for the young poster boy?

“I’m doing a sport that I love and that’s the only reason that I dive.

“To get the support and then respect from people all around the world has just been phenomenal.”