Rio Olympics 2016: From a five percent chance of survival to Olympic gold – the remarkable journey of Chris Mears
CHRIS MEARS and Jack Laugher won Great Britain's first ever gold medal in the diving on Wednesday but for Mears, this was triumph over adversity, given that he nearly DIED just seven years ago.
The boy from Berkshire ruptured his spleen diving in Australia in 2009 and was given just a five per cent chance of survival before life-saving surgery.
After his surgery, Mears remained in Australia until he was fit to fly but he was found having a seizure on the floor of his hotel room.
His seizure lasted a remarkable seven hours which led to him being put in a three-day coma.
He was told he would never dive again, so this victory capped a remarkable comeback story from the man who is an aspiring house DJ, signed to the Universal record label.
Laugher and Mears knew they were in with a shout, having arrived as Rio as the reigning Commonwealth and European champions, as well as World Championship bronze medallists.
After round one they were in joint third, and after the second dive they were behind only China.
At the halfway stage, though, they went clear in the lead.
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And that was where they stayed going into the final round, after they nailed their brutal forward two-and-a-half somersault with three twists.
But the pressure was really on their last dive.
Britain led China by 2.64 points going into it.
Yet it was the American pair of Sam Dorman and Mike Hixon who threatened an almighty late upset when they scored an incredible 98.04 with their final go.
Laugher and Mears, though, responded with a 91.20 of their own.
And when Yuan Cao and Kai Qin could only muster 83.22 with their last attempt, it was confirmed that a diving gold medal would be going back to Blighty for the first time.