Team GB diving medallist Jack Laugher reveals full extent of mental health struggles

Tokyo diving bronze medallist Jack Laugher said he could empathise with gymnast Simone Biles' mental struggles after experiencing "the worst two years of his life", crying himself to sleep and almost quitting the sport.

The 26-year-old completed the full set of Olympic medals - after synchro gold and individual silver at Rio 2016 - with his third-place finish behind the Chinese duo of Xie Siyi and Wang Zongyuan in the men's 3m springboard final. But the significance of making the podium was clear when Laugher described bronze as meaning, "100 times more than any medal I've ever got."

"I wanted to quit this year, quite a few times. It has been awful. I've hated it," said the multiple Olympic, world and European medallist. "I feel like today is redemption for what has been just such a bad couple of years. It might not be a gold medal but a medal around my neck today is just the sense that I'm back, and I am ready to keep going."

Speaking ahead of Biles' return to competition, after withdrawing from five events in Tokyo to prioritise her mental health, Laugher added: "I have a lot of empathy with the situation she is in right now because I can only imagine how hard it is for her being the best in the world, by a long shot, and struggling with something that she has found so natural all her life. I take a lot from that as it's a very similar situation that I found myself in for the past two years."

His pain had been sparked by the 2019 World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, where the Briton, leading from the first round and on course for a world record score, dramatically dropped his final dive - the back 3 1/2 somersault tuck - to slip to bronze.

"Failing to make myself a world champion, embarrassing myself with my final dive and the mistakes and failure I had there, it crushed me," said Laugher, of the signature dive that became his nemesis. “It put me in a place that was just terrible, I cried myself to sleep quite a few times, I had a lot of sleepless nights.”

"I kept making the same mistake over and over again. I can't tell you how hard it is going to training every single day being scared of doing a skill because you don't know where you are. It's so hard to throw yourself off a diving board whilst your heart is racing and you just don't know where it is."

Laugher, who won Britain's first Olympic diving gold alongside 3m synchro partner Chris Mears in 2016, had hinted at personal troubles back in May after his surprise sixth place in both the individual and synchro events at the European Championships, describing feeling "stress, fear and panic" when competing. Last Wednesday, his Olympic synchro title defence also ended with a seventh-place finish alongside new partner Dan Goodfellow.

But it was only in the aftermath of his gritty performance to win bronze, with a score of 518.00 - just 5.85 points less than the total which won him Olympic silver five years ago - that the devastating extent of Laugher's suffering was laid bare.

His experiences echoed the struggles of his team-mate Tom Daley in the aftermath of London 2012. Spooked by an ill-timed camera flash in the crowd, Daley, who finally landed his first Olympic title last week in Tokyo at his fourth attempt, underwent therapy, before eventually scrapping the dive that troubled him.

Laugher, meanwhile, continued to persist with his move - in Tokyo he performed the dive fourth, rather than last in his routine, his score of 81.00 the lowest score of his six dives, and also sought help from a psychologist. He described her support and that of coach Adam Smallwood, his family, plus girlfriend and "sounding board" GB diver Lois Toulson, as his "rock."

Meanwhile Laugher's team-mate James Heatly, the grandson of Sir Peter Heatly, winner of three consecutive Commonwealth diving golds in the 1950s, marked his maiden Olympic Games by finishing ninth with a score of 411.00.