2023 World Aquatics Championships: Jack Laugher's synchronicity with diving partners continues to reap rewards (2024)

Quick quiz.

Who was Britain's first-ever Olympic diving champion?

Who was the first British diver to win multiple Olympic diving medals at the same Games?

If you answered 'Tom Daley' to one or both of the above you'd be forgiven, but you'd be wrong.

Jack Laugher is your record breaker, who, alongside Chris Mears became the first Brits to ever win Olympic diving gold, after claiming the men's 3m springboard synchro title at Rio 2016.

A week later, Laugher (pronounced 'law') won silver in the individual 3m springboard event to claim the second accolade.

A third medal, an individual bronze in 3m springboard to complete the Olympic set, came at Tokyo 2020, where Laugher's former junior synchro partner, Daley claimed an emotional 10m platform synchro gold medal, alongside Matty Lee.

A specialist in springboard diving as opposed to the unforgiving concrete of the 10m platform, Laugher competes in both 1m and 3m heights.

Just the latter is an Olympic discipline but the Leeds-based athlete – an area famous for the GB triathlon conveyor belt of superstar athletes including the Brownlee brothers – also has eight world championship medals to his name in both disciplines.

One of those is silver, won in the 3m springboard with Anthony Harding at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships currently taking place in f*ckuoka, Japan.

The pair came second to the People's Republic of China duo of Wang Zongyuan – a four-time world champion – and relative newcomer Long Daoyi, with Tyler Downs and Greg Duncan of the United States claiming third.

Places at Paris 2024 have also been secured, courtesy of the results, with the top 12 finishers in the 3m and 10m individual events each obtaining a quota spot for their National Olympic Committee. The top three teams (excluding France) in the men's and women's 3m and 10m synchronised events do likewise.

Four of Laugher's world championship medals come in the solo disciplines – in 2015, he was also the first British diver to win two medals at the same World Championships, but with no world titles yet to report, the 28-year-old has another opportunity to claim top spot with the 3m springboard individual event in Japan.

The prelims and semi-final are on Wednesday (19 July) and the final on Thursday (20 July).

• How to qualify for diving at Paris 2024

Springboard to success

An illustrious career so far, Laugher nevertheless continues in this most testing of sports, pushing through mental and physical health challenges with his dive partners. However, outside the pool, he and girlfriend and fellow diver, Lois Toulson also support each other.

The 23-year-old Toulson is making waves of her own, one part of the pair of the first British women to win a world diving medal with silver in the 10m synchro alongside Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix in Japan.

But who are the divers with whom Laugher has sprung to Olympic synchro success, who, alongside their own individual achievements, play a huge part in the story of, arguably, Britain's most successful ever diver?

British Olympic diver Chris Mears

Chris Mears has quite the story.

In 2009, when Laugher was one year away from winning his first international medals with the 1m and 3m springboard titles at the 2010 European Junior Championships and the 2010 World Junior Championships, Mears was fighting for his life having ruptured his spleen.

Mears was 15 and miles from home, training in Sydney for the Youth Olympic Festival when he became so seriously ill he was given a five per cent chance of survival.

He recovered, but told he would never dive again. Nevertheless, Mears returned to competitive diving, winning the National Cup with synchro partner Nicholas Robinson-Baker before going on to resume his international career.

Selected for London 2012, Mears' father Paul was also chosen by the British Olympic Association to carry the Olympic Torch during the 70-day relay in recognition of the time he spent at his son's bedside during his recovery.

At the London Games, Mears and Robinson-Baker finished fifth in the synchro event and ninth in the individual competition.

The following year Mears teamed up with Laugher, but the pair did not qualify for the final of the World Championships in Barcelona.

Mears relocated to Leeds, home of many British divers, to train with Laugher and by 2015, the pair had claimed world bronze and were looking good ahead of the Brazil Games.

It was in Rio that Laugher and Mears became Britain's first ever Olympic diving champions when they won gold in men's 3m synchronised springboard, ending People's Republic of China's hopes of a clean sweep of diving golds in Brazil. The renowned diving nation did win seven out of the eight gold medals on offer, however.

Post Olympics, Mears decided to take a break from competition before retiring from the sport altogether to become a music producer and DJ.

British Olympic diver Daniel Goodfellow

While Laugher was having quite the time of it in 2015, diving prodigy Daniel Goodfellow was taking the whole of that year off with a nerve problem in his shoulder.

Potentially career ending, surgery fixed the problem and the following year, Goodfellow had claimed Olympic bronze alongside Daley in the 10m platform synchro.

In 2018, however, Goodfellow turned his attention to partnering Laugher in men's synchro 3m springboard after Mears' retirement.

An unexpected silver at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships in Gwangju, Republic of Korea in their first season as a pairing was most welcome but, even more surprising, was the speed with which Goodfellow had transitioned from 10m platform down to the 3m springboard, which takes huge change in skill-set and body composition.

“They're almost like two different sports,” Goodfellow told Olympic Channel in an exclusive interview ahead of Tokyo 2020, in 2021.

“It's like doing two distances of running. The movements are similar, but one board doesn't move and the other does, so you have to have different attributes for each one.

“It’s rare for someone to do both and be very good at both of them.”

“He was about six kilos lighter than me, so we had to work hard on our timing," Laugher told Olympics.com. "We’d had a difficult time finding our rhythm as a team that season in all honesty.”

But Laugher believes their shared interest in gaming, particularly important during the period of lockdown, was a factor in their success and their vital chemistry as a diving pair.

“You could say we stay in sync through gaming, which is nice as we get to spend some time together away from work,” said Laugher, who claimed bronze in the individual event in Japan.

Despite winning the test event ahead of the Tokyo Games, the pair ended up disappointed at the actual Games itself, finishing in seventh after Laugher had a particularly challenging time of it.

Following the Tokyo Olympics, Goodfellow had an elbow operation before opting to concentrate on individual events going forward. He'll be up against his former dive partner in the 3m springboard at the World Championships come Wednesday 19 July.

British diver Anthony Harding

In 2018, while Laugher was busy adding to his medal tally with two European titles, and three Commonwealth Games gold medals, Anthony Harding was winning the silver medal at the Summer Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires in the boy's 3m springboard event.

By the 2022 World Aquatics Championships held in Budapest the twosome had hooked up to compete in their first international competition as a duo, winning silver in the synchro 3m springboard. Laugher also won individual silver in 1m and bronze in 3m.

At the 2023 edition, Laugher and Mears replicated the silver won the previous year, despite an injury impacted season.

"It's been a hugely stressful day," Laugher told the BBC.

"I've had a terrible knee which still is not 100% at all, Anthony had two massive injuries as well in the pre-season, so this year has been, in comparison to last year, not smooth sailing at all.

"It's been a very emotional day with some dropped dives here and there, but we're really happy overall."

"We got through it, we're warriors and we've done our job," said Harding, 23.

"It's a massive weight off our shoulders."

February's World Championships in Doha will be their next outing, but the pair can recuperate properly until then safe in the knowledge that in their first year of diving together they have won two world silvers, a European title, a Commonwealth gold and two Diving World Cup second-place finishes.

Laugher's diving journey continues, with a new friend and partner joining him for the ride.