Daley bid to defend World gold ends with disappointing seventh-place finish

Tom Daley’s bid for gold at the World Aquatics Championships ended in disappointment as the defending men’s 10m platform champion could only finish seventh in the final.

Earlier on Saturday, Daley and Grace Reid had to settle for fourth place in the mixed three metre synchronised final, the pair having won world silver in the event two years ago.

Daley had claimed individual gold from Budapest 2017 – and was looking to add another medal to the bronze won with Matty Lee from the men’s 10m synchronised event earlier this week in Gwangju.

In qualifying for the final along with team-mate Noah Williams, both had helped secured 10m places for Britain at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Daley started strongly to get some promising early points on the board, and was in front after the first round.

However, the 25-year-old soon dropped down the leaderboard following a mistake in his second dive and eventually drifted out of contention to end with a total of 470.35.

Gold went to China’s Jian Yang who produced a combined score of 598.65 ahead of his compatriot Hao Yang (585.75) and Russian Aleksandr Bondar (541.05) taking bronze.

Williams, meanwhile, finished in 10th place, the 19-year-old making an overall total of 440.95.

Daley told www.britishswimming.org: “It’s not the way I wanted to end the World Champs but, on a positive, I came here to qualify two Olympic spots and I managed that, and I came away with a medal in the synchro.

“Of course it would have been nice to go out there and win or win a medal, but it leaves me some room for next year, gives me some things to work on and some extra motivation.”

Despite the disappointment of Saturday’s results, Britain will leave South Korea with three medals and having secured seven Olympic places overall.

Earlier, Daley and Reid had looked to be in with a chance of making the podium following an impressive last-round dive, but would end up just 3.15 points short.

German duo Lou Massenberg and Tina Punzel (301.62) secured the bronze medal, with Maddison Keeney and Matthew Carter (304.86) taking gold for Australia, edging out Jennifer Abel and Francois Imbeau-Dulac (304.08) of Canada.

Reid also tried to stay positive after coming up just short of a place on the podium alongside Daley.

“There’s definitely a degree of fun around this event and Tom helps me relax quite well – that’s probably the most fun I’ve had all week, it’s just a shame we couldn’t quite get a medal,” she said.