Daley and Lee win bronze at World Aquatics Championships

The result, the first major honour for the duo, secured Britain's second medal of the championships and guaranteed GB's qualification to the event at next summer's Tokyo Olympics.

It could have been even better for GB with a silver medal looking likely until a poor fifth round dive scuppered their chances, and almost put their third place in jeopardy, leaving Daley relieved to have secured a quota spot for Tokyo.

"That was the main thing at this point in the Olympic cycle," Daley said.

"Bronze is as good as gold in my eyes, just to be able to get to the Olympic Games in the first place.

"That is often the hardest thing because in the synchro event there's only eight teams that get to qualify. To be able to do it this far out in advance, I've never been in this position with any synchro partner in the past."

After a strong opening four dives Daley and Lee's fifth, a reverse three-and-a-half somersaults in the tuck position, lacked on synchro and execution and scored only 57.12 as they dropped to third with Ukrainian pair Oleksii Sereda and Oleh Serbin now only 1.14 points behind going into the final dive.

The British pair, however, executed the forward four-and-a-half somersaults in the tuck position brilliantly to finish 13.29 points ahead of the fourth placed Ukrainians.

Daley added: "We knew we could have got a silver medal. To have a bit of a bad day, you could say, and come away with a bronze medal, you've got to see some light in that."

Elsewhere, Grace Reid and Katherine Torrance finished just a few points off the podium in fifth in the Women's 3m Synchro while Kate Shortman secured her spot in a second final of the week as she qualified in 11th in the preliminary round of the Women's Solo Free.

Sportsbeat 2019