Commonwealth Games 2022: Matty Lee and Noah Williams seal dramatic diving men's 10m synchronised gold
The English pair survived an injury to Williams to win their second major medal of the summer at Birmingham's Sandwell Aquatics Centre.
Diving
Matty Lee and Noah Williams continued the amazing start to their diving partnership with victory in the men's 10m platform final at the 2022 Commonwealth Games on Friday (5 August).
One month on from winning silver at the FINA World Championships in Budapest, the English pair roared into an early lead with a first round score of 52.20.
But there was a scare in the fourth round where Williams didn't get his execution quite right, which allowed Canada's Rylan Wiens and Nathan Zsombor-Murray to take the lead.
Williams limped out of the pool afterwards in visible discomfort and needed treatment on his ankle. But the home duo responded in the fifth round with a perfectly synchronised reverse 3.5 somersault in tuck worth 84.66 to retake the lead.
With a huge amount of pressure going into their sixth and final jump, the pair stayed ice cool to deliver an 84.36 score to seal the gold medal with an overall total of 429.78.
As Lee helped Williams out of the water, they received a deafening roar of appreciation and a standing ovation from the capacity crowd at Sandwell Aquatics Centre in Birmingham.
READ MORE: Matty Lee Q&A: Stepping out from Tom Daley's shadow
Despite only starting diving together in 2022 following Lee's Olympic victory at Tokyo 2020 (in 2021) alongside Tom Daley, the pair have now won two major international medals.
"It feels very, very good – that's my first Commonwealth medal and that's something I've always wanted to do," Lee said after.
"I've done quite well in my career but Commonwealths was one I always wanted to do well at and I'm just so happy me and Noah came on top today. We've never competed in front of a crowd like that and we might not experience that again because that was insane.
"We managed to keep our heads in the zone but that was not an easy competition."
Williams also provided some detail on what happened with his cramping calf:
"I've never had it [cramp during diving competition] before and Matty said he's never had it before.
"His [cramp] slowly went away a bit but mine got worse and worse to the point where I was struggling to walk, which is why I had to get physio in between each dive.
"If it was Matty and Tom (Daley) it's pretty much a guaranteed win so being added into the synchro team is a lot of pressure on myself to fill Tom's shoes I guess.”
Commonwealth Games 2022: Men's 10m synchronised final results
- Matty Lee and Noah Williams, England - 429.78
- Rylan Wiens and Nathan Zsombor-Murray, Canada - 413.85
- Domomic Bedggood and Cassiel Rousseau, Australia - 412.56
- Ben Cutmore and Kyle Kothari, England - 391.35
- Jellson Jabillin and Hanis Surya, Malaysia - 365.64
- Arno Lee and Luke Spikes, New Zealand - 328.71
How to watch 2022 Commonwealth Games
The Commonwealth Games will be broadcast live in many parts of the world.
UK: BBC TV, BBC iPlayer and BBC website.
Canada: CBC Sports, CBC Sports app
Australia: Channel 7, 7Plus
New Zealand: Sky, TVNZ
India: Sony LIV
Singapore: Mediacorp's free-to-air Channel 5, meWATCH, and YouTube.
Malaysia: RTM
Further TV broadcast and digital live streaming details can be found on the Commonwealth Games website here.