Jack’s leap of faith ends his nightmare
JACK LAUGHER hailed his Olympic bronze in the men’s 3m springboard final after revealing the torment of the past couple of years left him on the brink of quitting diving.
Laugher, below, won gold and silver at Rio 2016 and he completed the set at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre by claiming the last step on the podium as Chinese pair Xie Siyi andWang Zongyuan took the first two places.
There was relief from Laugher, who spoke of his embarrassment at his final dive at the 2019 World Championship as he slipped from a gold medal position to take bronze.
He kept repeating the error with the same back three-and-a-half somersaults dive, leaving him fearful of attempting it until a turning point at the European Championships in May.
“This means everything to me,” said the 26-year-old from Harrogate. “It has been the worst two years of my life.
“After the 2019 World Championships, embarrassing myself with my final dive and the mistakes and the failure there, it crushed me. I cried myself to sleep, had a lot of sleepless nights because I still make that same mistake.
“I had no confidence, my anxiety was through the roof and I was scared to do the dive. It has been awful and I’ve hated it.
“This bronze medal is redemption.”
Laugher, who finished seventh in the synchronised event alongside Dan Goodfellow last week, put in a consistent display, not dropping below 81 points in his six dives, with a best of 96.9.
“I wanted to quit this year, quite a few times,” he said. “I can’t tell you how hard it is going to training every single day being scared of doing a skill because you don’t know where you are.
“It is so hard to throw yourself off a diving board while your heart is racing and you just don’t know where it is.
“I’ve made the same mistake over and over again and I just thought maybe this is a sign I’ve lost my mojo and I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.
“It’s interesting to see a very similar thing happen with Simone Biles. I have a lot of empathy with her situation.”