Daley and Waterfield miss out on medals

Tom Daley's dream of an Olympic medal was put on hold after he could only manage fourth alongside Pete Waterfield in the 10 metre platform synchro this afternoon.

The duo had led the competition at the halfway mark but despite being roared on by a vocal home support that included British Prime Minister David Cameron, they faded thereafter.

A pair of errors, most notably on their reverse three-and-a-half somersaults dive which dropped them out of the podium places, cost them dear as teenage Chinese pairing Cao Yuan and Zhang Yanquan claimed victory.

Mexico's German Sanchez and Ivan Garcia Navarro took silver ahead of Nick McCrory and David Boudia of the United States who, with an 8.82 points gap over Daley and Waterfield, were comfortably clear in bronze.

The British pair had initially looked on course to snatch the first home gold medal of these Olympics when they led the Chinese after three dives.

After a near-perfect compulsory set of dives Daley attracted a perfect 10, with Waterfield not far behind, for their back three-and-a-half somersaults to leave them 2.4 points clear at the top.

Inevitably the response of the Chinese, still unbeaten in international competition during their young careers, was to post 10s on their next dive and when both Daley and Waterfield then missed their entries they had suddenly slipped to fourth.

It drew an audible groan inside the Aquatics Centre and while they produced a solid forward four-and-a-half somersaults – their hardest dive – next up they had left themselves with too much work to do.

The result means Daley will now have to wait until the individual platform on the penultimate day of the Games to claim an Olympic medal – the only honour to have eluded him so far in his career.

The 18-year-old will leave the Olympic Village and return to a training base in Southend for six days in preparation for his anticipated clash with China's world champion Bo Qiu.