A delighted Matthew Mitcham has won his first Commonwealth gold. The Aussie and diving partner Dominic Bedggood beat Tom Daley and his partner to take out the synchronised 10-metre platform by just .18 points. Both duos finished with big scoring dives – Mitcham and Bedggood scored 88.56 points with a back 2 1/2 somersault 2 1/2 twist, while the English pair scored a massive 95.46 on their final dive to jump into second place. Mitcham was delighted. "I was almost resigned to believing 'You know what, eight silver medals would be really nice.' I am so happy," Mitcham told Channel 10. "It's all thanks to this guy," he added, embracing Bedggood. Mitcham and Daley, who are both openly-gay, were full of congratulations for each other after the competition and shared a hug. Daley and his new partner James Denny had only trained together three times before the competition. "We're pretty happy with the way we dived. If we had been told we would get a silver medal and do the final dive that we did, we would have been like yeah whatever," Daley says. "It's agonisingly close and we know that, but we're really happy." Mitcham and Daley will be up against each other again tonight in the individual 10m platform. Daley is the defending champion. Mitcham earlier also won silver overnight with 3m synchronised partner Grant Nel, taking his medal haul so far to a gold and two silvers.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Saturday, 2nd August 2014 - 8:30am