Tokyo Olympics: Dan Goodfellow has spring in step in bid for second Games medal
With one Olympic medal already in the bag, Dan Goodfellow will be heading to Tokyo seeking to add to the collection.
The 24-year-old former Cambridge Dive Team member partnered Tom Daley to bronze in the 10m platform at the 2016 Rio Olympics, but a lot has changed during the Olympiad.
Of course, Goodfellow is a more experienced athlete as a result of the intervening five years but the circumstances are very different ahead of the Games in Japan.
It was a tough build-up to Brazil, with nerve damage in his shoulder preventing Goodfellow from lifting his arm above his head and requiring surgery, which led to a year out of the sport.
He had to rebuild his technique and strength, but was then picked to partner Daley, and the rest is history.
In contrast, you could say the past four years have been plain-sailing.
The duo remained together for the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, where they won gold, but then a new challenge arrived in 2019 – joining Jack Laugher in the 3m springboard synchro.
“It came at quite a good moment because it came at a time when a young diver from Leeds called Matty Lee was coming up, it fitted quite well that he did synchro with Tom and then Chris (Mears) retired so I came down to springboard to do synchro with Jack so it all fitted conveniently,” explains Goodfellow.
“Then both pairs won a medal at the world championships to qualify their spots [for the Olympics] a year early so I think it was a good tactical decision as well.
“The springboard is very good because it means I can train more. Doing the tower when I was injured at the time I wasn’t able to train much, so on the springboard it means I can train a lot.
“I prefer doing the springboard just because I can train more. If I could stay injury free and do the 10m, who’s to say I might not enjoy that more.
“Just because I can wake up, go in, train hard and not worry about how I’m feeling, how my body is, that’s why I prefer doing springboard.”
He adds: “I had Tom as a very experienced platform diver who was there to guide me through Rio, and then I’ve got Jack now who is also probably one of the most experienced springboard divers to guide me through this. I’ve had two very experienced and successful partners.”
This Olympiad may have been very different for Goodfellow, but so will be the Olympics themselves, having been postponed a year because of the pandemic.
It will be a bit of an unknown for all, but the experience of competing at a Games will at least stand the former Melbourn Village College student in good stead.
“The fact that I’ve got to experience what it’s like to be at an Olympics is good,” he says. “Obviously it’s going to be a bit different this time round, how the crowd is going to work, and there will be some parts that are different because of Covid and the pandemic.
“I think just having that competition under my belt, and it’s also a synchro competition as well, is good. But I guess you never know how you’re going to feel until you’re actually in it.”
Since teaming up with Laugher, the pair won silver in the 3m synchro at the World Championships in 2019, securing Team GB’s quota place at the Olympics, and then won gold at the Diving World Cup in Japan in May this year.
That victory at the Olympic pool in Tokyo indicates things are heading in the right direction, though they are taking nothing for granted.
However, it was a good chance to test their list of dives for the Games.
“We were looking at the world cup to put in the same list that we would for the Olympics because obviously we wanted to practice the list that we were going to do in the Olympic pool, it made sense really,” says Goodfellow.
“We put in the triple L which is our hardest degree of difficulty dive [forward two-and-a-half somersaults, three twists pike], it’s going to be the hardest dive that’s done in an Olympic competition in the synchro.
“It went pretty well and obviously we came away with a gold medal. The fact we’ve already done the list and done the dives that we’re going to compete in the pool, done them well and won a medal, a gold one at that, I think it’s all positive.
“There was nothing that we tried out for the first time, but we tried the list that we thought we were going to perform at the Games.
“Diving is one of those sports that comes down to how well people perform on the day, you can never predict how it’s going to go.
“We’re just going to look to train as hard as we can now, and then hopefully we can put in a really good performance. Hopefully it will be a good result.”
Nearly all of Goodfellow and Laugher’s main rivals were at the competition in Japan, with the exception being the Chinese, who are always one of the leading nations in the discipline.
And the 3m synchro looks set to be a fiercely-contested category again in Tokyo.
“I think some of the other events maybe not everyone has qualified for different reasons, but I think, especially in the men’s springboard, everyone who should have qualified has qualified, everyone has turned up and there are some really good pairs in there,” says Goodfellow.
“There are some current Olympic medallists in that event as well. It’s going to be a fierce competition to be in.”
The mood across the Team GB diving squad is buoyant, with them all getting together for the first time at the kitting out at the NEC in Birmingham in mid-June.
Goodfellow described the sense of excitement as the Games draw nearer, and the optimism for success.
“I think it’s the it’s the strongest squad we’ve ever had,” he explains.
“It seems to be a thing with British Diving that we get stronger every year. It was the case leading up to Rio, and from Rio every year we’ve got stronger and stronger and stronger.
“I don’t think we’ve ever sent a stronger team to the Olympics.”
The mood across the Team GB diving squad is buoyant, with them all getting together for the first time at the kitting out at the NEC in Birmingham in mid-June.
Goodfellow described the sense of excitement as the Games draw nearer, and the optimism for success.
“I think it’s the strongest squad we’ve ever had,” he explains.
“It seems to be a thing with British Diving that we get stronger every year. It was the case leading up to Rio, and from Rio every year we’ve got stronger and stronger and stronger.
“I don’t think we’ve ever sent a stronger team to the Olympics.”
