大象传媒

Neither Tom Daley or I ever talked about winning a medal in the 10m individual platform competition and I'm very proud of the way he dived in the final.

He raised his game from the preliminaries to the semi-final and then raised his game again.

He'll be the first to admit that he was not on top of his game in the final, but he finished seventh and there are good things to take away from the Olympics.

Obviously there are things to improve on as well, but most importantly, he competed with a smile on his face and he goes away smiling.

He has enjoyed the whole Olympic experience and that has given him the best preparation for London 2012.

Let's not forget he's only 14 - he starts his GCSEs in September - but he has shown he can hold his nerve and perform on the greatest stage in the world and he has dealt with massive media interest like a true professional.

He knows he could have performed better in the final, but every diver will analyse their performances and even will look at his third dive and say it's not as good as it could have been.

But overall, Mitcham dived out of his skin and there were crazy scenes in the final round - you couldn't have scripted a more dramatic finale.

He finished with back 2.5 somersaults with 2.5 twists, a dive I invented 10 years ago when the governing body changed the rules and you could calculate a formula to give you high tariff dives.

I used it in the Olympics four years ago to get into the final and scored straight nines, but Mitcham improved on that.

It was a dramatic final dive and stopped the Chinese winning all eight competitions as happened when .

Tom will go and enjoy the closing ceremony now before going home and having a couple of days off before he starts preparations for the World Junior Championships, which are in .

And then it's a tough four years ahead - Tom will be 18 by the time London 2012 comes around and his body will have gone through many physical changes, and he faces many mental challenges as well, as the pressure increases further.

As his mentor, I'll be there to offer advice and guide, but I'll be placing no expectations on him.

Leon Taylor was talking to 大象传媒 Sport's Peter Scrivener.