Steve Larkin / AAP News
In a spectacular final dive, the 21-year-old has produced the dive of his life to secure the men’s 10m platform gold medal at Birmingham 2022.
Australia’s Cassiel Rousseau has produced the dive of his life to snare a gold medal in the men’s 10 metre platform at the Commonwealth Games.
The 21-year-old held a lead of just 2.1 points over Canadian Rylan Wiens entering the final round of Sunday’s final in Birmingham.
Wiens’ last dive was before Rousseau’s. And it was a stunner – backward, two and a half somersaults, two and a half twists – rewarded with 97.2 points.
Rousseau needed 95.1 points to share gold; more to win. His best dive to that stage was an 84.60.
The grandson of French cyclist Michel Rousseau, an Olympic champion in the sprint at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, then did the extraordinary.
Rosseau’s forward four and a half somersaults wasn’t just spectacular. It was near perfection at the perfect time.
One judge gave him a 10, three others a 9.5, and three more a 9.0.
Diving’s scoring system strikes out the highest and lowest scores and multiplies the remaining three by the dive’s difficulty – in this case, 3.7.
That left Rousseau with a score of 103.6. And a gold medal.
“There was lots of pressure on that last dive and I think I handled it pretty well,” he said in a massive understatement.
So what went through his head before his dive of destiny?
“Before the dive, I said to myself, ‘if I land on my stomach or I do actually land on my head, I am not going to care at all, I am just going to give it my all and see what I actually have’,” he said.
“And as soon as I was about to run, actually nothing was in my head. And I just went for it.
“That was pretty much in the top two dives I have ever done in my life.
“I did know straight away. As soon as I hit the water I knew I was going to get some bloody high marks.”
Rousseau’s teammate Sam Fricker finished 10th in the final.