Aussie diving champ Mitcham on top of the rings already

Australian diving champion Matthew Mitcham put himself literally on top of the Olympic rings on Monday by clambering up a giant set in the athletes village to have his picture taken as dawn broke over London. The 10-metres platform gold medallist, the only non-Chinese to win a diving gold in Beijing, sent out a stunning photograph on his Twitter feed (@matthew_mitcham) and later told reporters he was having a great time. So much so, that he was having a rethink about his future. “In the lead-up to these Games, and all the struggles that I’ve been going through with the physical side of things and all that, I had pretty much decided this was going to be my last Olympic Games,” said the 24-year-old at a news conference. [caption id=“attachment_388952” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption] “But as soon as I got there that all went out of the window,” he grinned. “The Olympics is really addictive … there’s nothing like it and I remember saying in Beijing that I never want to miss another Olympic Games again. And I had forgotten that until I got here. “I never want to miss another Olympic Games again.” Mitcham missed last year’s world championships in Shanghai, where the Chinese won all the diving golds, due to injury and spent much of the enforced downtime making sure he was in the right frame of mind for London. That has meant immersing himself in sports psychology, mentally training himself even if he could not work out physically. “I am confident that I am going to compete well,” he said. “I am pretty confident that I can put together a good Olympic performance.” BRIT RIVALRY Divers, as Mitcham’s Village photograph demonstrated, are among those least likely to suffer from vertigo but the mental side is crucial. Mitcham said he had been seeing a sports psychologist once or twice weekly for more than a year. He has been working on all areas of his life and ensuring he has the right balance between the sport and the social as well as personal development. The mental work has also helped with the age-old Australian tradition of taunting the Brits, something that comes with the territory more than ever in London, and Mitcham has been doing his homework. Last February, at a test event, he accused British diving posterboy Tom Daley of wanting to have his cake and eat it by trying to reduce the burden of expectation while reaping the rewards of high-profile sponsorships. “I think we always want to stick it to the Poms,” Mitcham grinned on Monday. His position going into the competition was much more comfortable than Daley’s, he added. “I think people really underestimate how much it can affect you, having the weight of expectation,” said Mitcham. “Some athletes deal with that much better than others. “The Chinese divers will certainly have a lot of that expectation as well because they will be going for their lucky number eight – eight gold medals in all of diving – so they will have an incredible amount of pressure on their backs as well. “I feel quite grateful that because of all these injuries a lot of that expectation has been lifted. I am in an underdog position, which I am not disappointed about at all.” Reuters