There was high drama in the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre as Tom Daley and Dan Goodfellow captured bronze with their last dive to seal Team GB’s first diving medal of Rio 2016.
Diving last of the eight pairs, the Brits needed 83.62 for their final effort to seal a podium place.
And after a nervy wait for the scores to be displayed, Daley and Goodfellow were jumping back in the pool in celebration, having scored 89.64 to finish on 444.45.
It was familiar rivals standing in their way with Germany’s Sascha Klein and Patrick Hausding – who beat Daley and Goodfellow to gold at this year’s European Championships in London – posting 438.42 for the Brits to beat.
And Daley admitted the long wait to discover their fate was one he wouldn’t forget in a hurry.
“It was an agonising wait that felt like it was an eternity,” said London 2012 individual 10m bronze medallist Daley, who is the first British diver to have won multiple Olympic medals.
“We were stood there and knew we had done a good dive but didn’t know if we’d done enough.
“It was just one of those moments where I knew how I would feel if it came up on the scoreboard that we finished fourth and I knew how I would feel if we finished third.
“Back in the European Championships it was a similar situation going into the last round dive and the Germans pipped us by two points.
“We didn’t want to let that happen again. I said to Dan afterwards, don’t worry we’ll get them at the Olympics. And we did.”
Their pair only began diving together in October but lifted World Cup bronze as well as European silver in a whirlwind season.
Goodfellow even moved in to live with Daley for six weeks before the Games, training full-time with his synchronised partner at London Aquatics Centre, the stage of Daley's emotional bronze four years ago.
And while the Brits slipped down the rankings to fifth in the fourth round, the 19-year old Cambridge diver insisted he had no doubt they would recover lost ground with their last two dives.
“Our fourth dive wasn’t amazing but towards the back end of our list we have a really high degree of difficulty,” said Goodfellow.
“I knew our last two are our two real big ones and we’d have to nail them and that’s what we did.
“There was always going to be loads of pressure going into it and diving number eight.
“So I just accepted that, tried to block everything else out and focused on my dives.”