Tom Daley and Noah Williams seal Olympic spots with silver in Doha
The British pair of Tom Daley and Noah Williams secured spots at the Paris Olympics with silver in the men’s 10metre synchro at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha.
They earned 84.48 points in their first international competition as a pair and sealed a quota spot for this year’s Olympic Games in the process.
China’s Lian Junjie and Yang Hao took gold in the event, while Oleksii Sereda and Kirill Boliukh of Ukraine finished third.
Daley’s and Williams’s silver medal also set a new British diving record, becoming Britain’s seventh of the championships, beating a previous best of six in Budapest in 2022, and Daley insisted that the “real work” starts now in the buildup to Paris.
“I was terrified when I woke up this morning, terrified eating breakfast, and at lunch!” Daley said. “But once I got into the competition, and being with
Noah, I kind of relaxed and was like, ‘ah, this is what it feels like’.
“We knew that we had to try to qualify for a spot at the Olympics, which we succeeded in – but I think we went into it more fighting for the medals rather than thinking about the spots.
“Today was what it all came down to, whether I was going to be able to be fit enough to dive with Noah in the first place, and then be able to actually come in the top qualifying spots. That’s mission accomplished so far, and now it’s about staying fit and healthy to get to the start line [in Paris], so now the real work starts.”
For Williams, it was a second silver world championship men’s 10m synchro medal having earned his first in 2022 at Budapest and he hopes to push for gold alongside Daley.
He said: “We came into today’s competition just trying to get an Olympic spot, and we did that and got a medal as well, so we’re very happy with the performance. We obviously haven’t trained too much together, but I think it has come pretty naturally to both of us.
“Tom said about seeing if he’s fit enough to dive with me, it’s definitely the other way around. I just try to do my best next to him, he’s obviously a great diver, so the better I dive, we’ll hopefully be able to be pushing for gold.”