Tom Daley has his first gold of these Commonwealth Games. Together with Max Brick, Daley won the men's 10m synchronised with ease in Delhi today. They led the competition from the second round right through to the finish, and eventually beat the Australian pair of Olympic singles champion Matt Mitcham and Ethan Warren by more than 15 points. With only four pairs competing, the field was so small that it took Daley and Brick only 20 minutes to win their medals. But such is the excitement about Daley's presence here that it took the pair another hour just to get through all their media engagements after the event.
"It feels amazing," said the 16-year-old Daley through a broad smile, "I've just got one more title to get before the end of my career and that is the Olympic gold. That's the aim, I have got to get it before I retire." Not, he was quick to add, that he was thinking of quitting the sport after London 2012.
"I hope to try and do as many Olympics as I can before my body falls apart." That is not as far-fetched an idea as it sounds, as diving is a high-stress sport and Daley was diving with strapping on his arm because he suffered a severe triceps injury in training earlier this year.
"It still needs treatment every day just to get rid of the scar tissue," he said, "because there is still quite a big lump in it, so it is just a matter of keeping an eye on it."
Alexei Evangulov, British Diving's performance director, has been training Daley up as part of a trio with Brick and Peter Waterfield, the idea being that the 18-year-old Brick would be back-up to the first choice pair. But the 19-year-old Waterfield pulled out of the Delhi Games because he had fears about the security here. After the performance of Brick and Daley this morning, Evangulov admitted he may change his thinking about who the best partner is for Daley at the 2012 Olympics. "Hopefully, we will stay together," Brick said. "We just got a massive PB, and we're both diving very well at the moment." This was his first major medal.
"We have not had much training, myself and Max," Daley said. "We had 10 days before the European Championships before I tore my triceps and we had 10 days before we came here. So we have had 20 days of training since the Rome world championships in 2009, and we have come here and come away with a Commonwealth gold medal. Hopefully by the time the Olympics comes around we will have done a lot more training and we will be even better."
He will compete against Mitcham again tomorrow in the singles.