Jack Laugher defends Olympic village food following Peaty outburst

By Paul Martin at Centre Aquatique

Jack Laugher defended the quality of food in the Olympic village following an outburst by his fellow aquatics ace Adam Peaty.

The swimmer slammed the catering options as ‘not good enough’ in an interview with the i, even claiming he found worms in his fish - but Laugher has been more fortunate.

“I’ve not seen anything about that, I’ve had a great time,” said the diver after qualifying for the men’s 3m springboard semi-finals.

“Every village always has its complications but they’ve ironed out a lot of things quickly. 

"It’s a wonderful village and this Olympics is running really smoothly so far.”

The 29-year-old from Harrogate was pleased with a ‘solid’ start to his bid for a second medal at Paris 2024 as he qualified in third.

He is looking to add to the synchro bronze he won alongside Anthony Harding last week and complete the set in this event, having won silver in Rio and bronze in Tokyo, with the semi-finals on Wednesday before the final the following day.

“It went really well,” he said. “It was nice and consistent, no major errors and lots to improve on.

“It was a great performance the other day and I was really proud of what we achieved, the medal we got and how I dived.

“I just wanted to bring that forward to this competition and hopefully on to the final.

“I have been itching to go again and I managed to reset really quickly to get back to where I needed to be. I took a day off, saw my family and then got back into it.”

Britain’s divers are over 1,000 elite athletes on UK Sport’s National Lottery-funded World Class Programme and Laugher will be joined in the semi-finals by Sheffield’s Jordan Houlden, who looked composed on his Olympic debut and qualified in fourth, a place behind his compatriot.

“I’ve been wanting to get going for quite a while,” said Houlden, who missed out on the synchro events.

“We have been in here for about two weeks, so it’s been long enough. Now we are going, it feels great.

“I’m quite a laid back and chilled guy. I did my normal thing, I play my games when I want to, I was just keeping calm and collected, doing my own stuff.

"I kept calm and relaxed. I just thought of it as another competition, I didn’t think of it as the Olympics. That turned it into my favour.”

Yona Knight-Wisdom, who was born and brought up in Leeds, will also be in the semi-finals.

Knight-Wisdom is making history as Jamaica’s first-ever male Olympic diver and qualified in 14th.

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