Tokyo 2020 Olympics - Diving - Men's 10m Platform - Preliminary Round - Tokyo Aquatics Centre, Tokyo, Japan - August 6, 2021. Yang Jian of China in action REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth
TOKYO - China's Yang Jian and Cao Yuan finished first and second in the preliminaries for the men's 10 metre platform diving at the Tokyo Games on Friday, while Tom Daley, who won synchronised gold, clawed his way back up to fourth after struggling early in the competition.
Yang, 27, led the way from the start with a series of strong dives, finishing with 546.90 points, 17.60 ahead of Cao in second.
Aleksandr Bondar from the Russian Olympic Committee came third with 513.85.
Daley finished 23rd in the first round, but redeemed himself and ended up qualifying in fourth place with 453.70.
"Qualifying first and qualifying 18th doesn't really matter, because tomorrow starts from zero," he told reporters.
The 27-year-old was spotted knitting near the diving pool in between the rounds.
"It has been such a great distraction for me to be mindful," he said, adding that he was making a scarf for a toy that one of the officials had.
Fourteen-year-old Rikuto Tamai, the youngest male athlete in the Japanese team at the Games, finished 16th.
The top-scoring 18 divers out the 29 competing qualified for the semi-finals, which will take place on Saturday.
