Rio 2016: Jack Laugher and Chris Mears' 'washing machine' gamble pays off with Olympic diving gold

Britain’s Jack Laugher declared on Wednesday night that the hugely challenging dive he called “the washing machine” had been a gamble worth taking for him and his partner and Chris Mears as they clinched Britain’s first Olympic gold medal in diving.

The dive – forward 2 1/2 somersault 3 twists – is the most difficult in the world and never been tried by a synchronised pair until the British took it on.

“We were not the inventors,” said Laugher. “It's been done for a few years by 2008 Olympic champion He Chong and the Russians, but we were the first in synchro. We did it even better at the London [Olympics] than today. For us, we did it amazing and couldn't end it any better.”

The pair said they had not created a name for the dive, thought Laugher threw out the name ‘washing machine’ as they tried to think what it might be called.

The gold was a particularly emotional victory for Mears, the 23-year-old, who had life-saving surgery to remove a spleen ruptured while diving in 2009.

“That’s something that I don't think about too much now [illness], especially because I still can’t believe it’s happen,” he said. ”I’ll think about it in the future probably but definitely when I went into London I performed really well there and it was really emotional for me because of what had happened to me.

The more prosaic obstacles included the green water in the diving pool, created by algae, though Laugher said that the pair had been happy with the conditions of the water. “It was clear water and it was safe,” said Mears.

They also had to overcome what Mears described as the “English” Rio weather and were suitably happy with that, too.

“Conditions are a big thing here,” he said. “There are a lot of factors that can throw people off. We didn’t let that phase us. We enjoy diving in the rain. We love it. The last time we were here in Brazil in the rain it rained and we loved it. We took on the English weather with the wind and the rain and the cloudiness and embraced it and we came out with the medal that wasn’t even our best score.”

The monumental challenge was the Chinese pair Cao Yuan and Qin Kai, though. China had won all three of the prior events at the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre and were clear favourites. The American pair of Sam Dorman and Mike Hixon were also formidably strong.

The British pair, who share a home in Leeds, led at the halfway point of the competition. A score of 86.58 for their ‘washing machine’ – comfortably the most difficult dive in their repertoire - saw the Britons take an advantage of 2.64 into the final round.

With the USA nine points adrift in third, it appeared to be a two-way battle for gold, coming down to the final dive.

There was an agonising delay as Mexico wanted a re-dive, but were denied, after claiming to be distracted by additional floodlights coming on. And then the American duo then responded to score 98.04 with their final dive, reaching 450.21 and piling the pressure on Britain.

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“The Americans definitely put the pressure on us. I recognized they had done a really sick front,” said Laugher. “I knew they really nailed it and they were quite vocal about it and quite emotional.

“But we just stayed in our zone. We didn’t know how many points we needed because I wasn’t concentrating on that. All I concentrated on was landing on my head on my dive and I did that. And so did Jack so we came out on top.”

It was a gold out of the blue: the first competition the pair had ever won intentionally. “We did brilliantly at last year' World Champ in Kazan to finish third,” said Laugher. “And the Commonwealths. We beat the Chinese in a preliminary in Shanghai in 2013 or 14 but rarely are they ever beaten. I will take it.”

“So will I,” said Mears

Laugher, who still has an individual competition to undertake, said he was planning “a lot of sleep, a lot of food and [I’ll] probably cry a bit more. I have individual coming soon so I have to refocus for that but Chris is done now; one competition, one gold. [Two golds] would be the most unbelievable thing in the entire world but to come away with one is something that I knew I could do but it just doesn’t seem real, it’s ridiculous.”