Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
DALEY USES HIS WILDER SIDE TO WIN
TOM DALEY has revealed he turned into a “competitive animal” to defeat the Chinese and clinch gold on Saturday night.
Daley was second after five rounds of dives at the World Aquatics Championships in Budapest but, under pressure, fought back with a brilliant last effort to take the title by a mere 5.7 points.
The 23-year-old finished with a personal best score of 590.95, just ahead of China’s Olympic champion Chen Aisen on 585.25.
“When I saw Chen do his last dive, I saw the Chinese team cheering and celebrating as if they had won,” Daley said.
“And I was like ‘OK, you want to play that game? I’m going to show you what I can do too’.
“It turned me into a competitive animal. I was like ‘OK, this is fun — this is what we’ve all been working for’. Let the best man win.”
Daley’s gold at the Duna Arena was his first individual global title for eight years. He last won aged just 15 at the 2009 championships in Rome.
Chen admitted he thought he had won the final after a perfect last dive that earned him 106.20 points.
“It was a weird competitive feeling. It was like I had blinkers on,” Daley said. “But I like that kind of pressure. It’s fun.”
Elsewhere, Adam Peaty (above) remained on track to retain his 100m breaststroke crown yesterday after he broke the championship record in the semi-final.
Peaty even eased up in the last few metres to make sure he didn’t “empty the tank”, but was well ahead of Kevin Cordes in second.
“I’m ready for this environment, this is my home,” Peaty said. “I love to race with the crowd and it’s such an amazing venue.
“Tomorrow I’m going to get myself up for it really good. There I was just going through the motions, getting out a 57.7. My jacket thing they make you put on fell off three times. I was messing about with that. I can improve so much for tomorrow.”