It was a high-voltage contest all the way at the Dr. S.P. Mukherjee aquatics complex here on Thursday. The men's 10m platform diving final of the Commonwealth Games produced some amazing efforts as World champion Tom Daley (England) crossed swords with Olympic champion Mitcham Matthew (Australia) in a fiery duel for supremacy.
The young English diver, prior to the final itself, had admitted that he was wary of the final dive of his Australian foe. “You can never underrate him. Mitcham has got the best final dive in the world today.”
But, ironically, if Daley found himself receiving the gold medal on a platter in the end, it was only because Mitcham blew his chances faltering at that final step. Of course, the Aussie needed a big dive and over 85 points to overtake his English rival to ensure a top podium finish.
But it was not to be his day and as Mitcham failed to deliver, Daley was a comfortable winner of the title with a tally of 538.35 points. The class of the two divers in fact had been there for all to see; Daley though being the only diver in the fray to gain a perfect 10 from all the seven judges — off his third effort, an inward three-and-a-half somersault.
So engrossing was the competition between the two rivals that one did forget that there were nine other divers in the fray. And this included the two Indians — Puskar Meitei and Himanshu Tiwari, who expectedly had little to offer before finishing at the bottom of the league, placing themselves in the 10th and 11th positions. Malaysia's Bryan Nickson Lomas was the winner of the bronze with a tally of 487.15 points.
Stratton wins gold
Earlier in the day, Sharleen Stratton of Australia put behind the disappointment of three days to win the women's 3m springboard gold medal. The Australian was placed in a comfortable position before she took the title with a tally of 375.00 points, a good 37.45 points ahead of Canadian Jennifer Abel. Jaele Patrick finished in third spot after scoring a total of 326.15 points in what was a final which, quality-wise, certainly lacked the expected class. The Indians, as usual, brought up the rear as S.P. Hrutika and Karishma Mohite finished 11th and 12th with tallies of 194.60 and 175.35 points respectively.
