Craig Lord

From Craig Lord in Sydney

Tony Ali, the near-deaf diver who had to sell his team kit to be able to afford to go to the ball as the 1996 Atlanta Games ended, finished twelfth and last in his first Olympic final, the 3-metre springboard. China’s Xiong Ni retained the title in a nail-biting finish that came down to the last dive.

Dimitri Sautin, the Russian they call “The Man” and whom Ali believes to have “ice running through his veins”, led for the first five rounds of six. It looked as though the 1996 highboard champion would add the springboard crown to his collection. Behind him were Fernando Platas, of Mexico, and Xiong.

Platas was first of the three to take his last dive. It went well and left him with a total of 708.42 points. Next came Sautin, with an attempt at the mind-boggling reverse two-and-a-half somersaults with one-and-a-half twists that was introduced to the sport by Ali. Sautin fluffed it. He scored 65.10 points, leaving him with a total of 703.20. There were no wobbles from Xiong as he edged out the Mexican for the title by just 0.30 points, a margin the same as a space not even a gnat could pass through.

Tony Ali © Allsport

Ali, 27, was “disappointed” in his performance but “proud to have competed for Britain and pleased to have made my first Olympic final”. Lindsay Fraser noted that Ali was the first British diver to do so since Brian Phelps in 1964 and had had to exceed 600 points to reach the top 16, a record in the sport. Ali’s presence in the final was evidence that British diving has progressed significantly on the world stage since the advent of national lottery funding, she added.

The European champion of 1999, Ali took pleasure in that he had scored 71 points from his reverse 2½ somersaults with 1½ twists, which carries the highest degree of difficulty off the boards, compared with the 65 points accumulated by Sautin, a tally which had lost him the battle with Xiong and Platas.

Xiong and Sautin have long been rivals. The Russian won the 10m highboard title in 1996 and finished third in the springboard in 1992, while the Chinese champion finished third in the highboard in 1992 before winning the springboard title in 1996. In victory today, Xiong became only the second man to retain the title, Greg Louganis, of the US, having been first to do so in 1988. Louganis remains the only man to have won four Olympic gold medals in diving, while Xiong now joins Klaus Dibiasi, of Italy, in the 1960s and 1970s, as next best.

With his name meaning "silver" in Spanish, Platas seemed destined to get the silver medal, having spent the whole competition in the runner-up spot, except for those three minutes between his last dive and Xiong’s. Platas became the first Mexican to win a diving medal since Carlos Giron finished second in the springboard at the Moscow Games in 1980.

Ali, who would have needed a seventh dive to get close to the medal winners after scoring only 583.80, will contest the synchronised 3m event on Thursday. He said: “It was superb to be in that final. I’ve done the job. I just wish I could have been more consistent.”

His preparations had gone “extremely well” but it had “just not happened on the day”. His lottery funding had not been wasted and had helped to put in place the foundations for British divers of the future, he said. There was also much to look forward to in the synchronised event. “On the day, that can be anyone’s and we’re in with a shout,” said Ali, who will partner Mark Shipman.

Ali was delighted to have exceeded Sautin’s points score on his last dive. “I can just do it better than him,” he said. But then there were five other dives.