TOM Daley can bounce back from the disappointment of missing out on a medal in the 10m synchro competition by securing a place on the podium in the individual event.

That’s the view of Peter Elliott – a man who has been described as the “Tom Daley of the last London Olympics”.

Elliott competed for Great Britain at the 1948 Games in London, as well as the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki.

Now living in the Southend, the 82-year-old has been watching the diving action at the Aquatics Centre with great interest and is positive Daley has what it takes to medal in the individual event on the penultimate day of the Games.

He said: “Tom Daley is a great, great diver. I am sure he will get a medal in the individual event, whether it’s a silver or a bronze.

“I’m not too sure about the gold because the Chinese will again be very strong. The Chinese, as far back as I can remember, have always been fantastic divers. They are slim and have the perfect figures for it.”

And it is that physical difference between the Chinese and Great Britain that played some part in Daley and his synchro partner Pete Waterfield being edged out of the medals.

Elliott said: “You look at the Chinese, and even the US and Japanese divers and they make sure their synchro partners are both the same height, the same physique and it works terrifically.

“If you look at Tom and Pete – Pete is now quite a bit shorter than Tom and that must have some sort of affect on the synchronicity.”

Elliott admits comparing his Olympic experience in post-war London to the current day version is almost impossible – not least because the fact none of the athletes were paid back then.

But with him being just 17 when the Games took place, and with a background in entertainment – which he went on to develop on stage and TV after his diving career – there are a lot of parallels between him and today’s golden boy Daley.

“Someone said to me the other day that you were the Tom Daley of those games,” he said. “That’s nice because Tom Daley is such an amazing diver.

“But we didn’t have the pressure today’s athletes have on them. For us, in an Olympics just two years after the Second World War, it was just fantastic to be competing at an Olympics and that’s how we treated it.”