Laugher: I have been so down I nearly quit sport
Bronze medallist lays bare extent of mental struggles World Championship flop led to fear over favourite dive
Bronze medallist Jack Laugher said he could empathise with gymnast Simone Biles’s mental struggles after he felt “crushed”, cried himself to sleep and almost quit his sport.
Competing in the men’s threemetre springboard final, Laugher completed the full set of Olympic medals – after winning synchro gold and individual silver at Rio 2016 – with his third-place finish behind Chinese duo Xie Siyi (gold) and Wang Zongyuan.
But the significance of merely making the podium became clear when the 26-year-old described bronze as meaning “a hundred times more than any medal I’ve ever got”.
“I wanted to quit this year, quite a few times. It has been awful. I’ve hated it,” said the multiple Olympic, world and European medallist. “But my team around me has been the best ever, I can’t thank them enough.
“I feel like today is redemption for what has been just such a bad couple of years. It might not be a gold medal but a medal around my neck today is just the sense that I’m back, and I am ready to keep going.”
His medal came just two hours prior to Biles’s return to competition after her withdrawal from five events to prioritise her mental health. The American would also claim a bronze medal and, speaking before the women’s beam final, Laugher said: “I have a lot of empathy with the situation she is in. It’s a very similar situation that I found myself in for the past two years.”
Laugher, who won Britain’s first Olympic diving gold alongside three-metre synchro partner Chris Mears in 2016, had hinted at personal troubles after his surprise sixth place in both the individual and synchro events at May’s European Championships, describing feeling “stress, fear and panic” when competing. Last Wednesday, his Olympic synchro title defence also ended in seventh place, alongside new partner Dan Goodfellow.
But it was only in the aftermath of Laugher’s third place yesterday that the extent of his suffering was laid bare. His pain had, it transpired, been sparked by the 2019 World Championships in South Korea, where the Briton, leading from the first round and on course for a world record, fluffed his final dive – the back 3½-somersault tuck – scoring just 30.60 to slip to bronze.
“Failing to make myself a world champion, embarrassing myself with my final dive and the mistakes and failure I had there, it crushed me,” said Laugher. For his entire career, the back 3½-somersault tuck had been his strength. Instead, it started to haunt him.
“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.”
Laugher’s troubles had echoes of team-mate Tom Daley’s struggles with his “demon” backwards 2½-somersault with 2½ twists in the pike position in the aftermath of London 2012. Spooked by a camera flash in the crowd, Daley, who landed his first Olympic title last week at his fourth attempt, underwent therapy, before eventually replacing it with a new dive.
Laugher, meanwhile, continued to persist with his move but also sought help from a psychologist. He described her support, plus that of coach Adam Smallwood, his family, and girlfriend and “sounding board” Lois Toulson – also a diver in the British Olympic team – as being like his “rock.”
Also crucial, he said, was an “epiphany” after the European Championships where he was able to finally identify a way forward.
“I was focusing too much on certain techniques,” he added. “Once we stripped that back and worked out what it is that makes me, me as a diver and what technique I have, my coaches let me go with it.”
Meanwhile, Laugher’s team-mate James Heatly, the grandson of Sir Peter Heatly, winner of three Commonwealth diving golds in the 1950s, marked his maiden Olympic Games by finishing ninth.