RIO DE JANEIRO -- Four years ago Tom Daley wanted to walk away from diving.I couldnt see past 2012 -- that was it, that was everything I had been gearing up towards, Britains Daley told a press conference on Thursday.It was London 2012, London 2012, and it got to the point where it came and went, and suddenly you are thinking What happens next? I never wanted to step up on a diving board again.One of the poster boys of the previous Olympics in his home country, where he won bronze in the individual 10m competition, he had become tired of the sport that had taken him to two Games and instead he wanted to escape from its rigours.But here he was standing, grinning as he talked to the media in the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre in the Olympic Park. It was a hubbub of activity behind him with divers of all nationalities going off the different height boards while various synchronised swimmers went through routines in the water to an orchestral version of Smooth Criminal.Daley, now 22, looked at home; his excitement was palpable ahead of his first dive on Monday. For British interests in the Games as he looks for medals in the mens synchronized 10m platform and then individual 10m platform, he is right up there but pressure is no longer a problem.He now embraces it and channels it to help guide his teammates while finding an inner peace coupled with a ruthless focus. This was not the case after London 2012.He looked outside of diving for a release -- January 2013 saw the broadcasting of his television show Splash! in the United Kingdom -- but he needed a complete break and the tricep injury sustained in the 2013 Barcelona FINA World Championships gave him the necessary excuse to get away from the sport.?He was given the summer off; he went travelling, enjoyed being a teenager and came back refocused on his sport. He had learned to embrace life outside of diving rather than push it back for fear of it being a distraction.December 2013 saw him announce his relationship with his now-fiancé, the Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, and by the New Year he had moved from Plymouth into an apartment overlooking Londons Olympic Park.He also changed coach to Zimbabwe-born Jane Figueiredo, bidding an emotional farewell to Andy Banks who had coached him from eight years old, and since Sept. 2014 hes been teetotal.The swap to Figueiredo was a masterstroke as she saw that to keep Daleys active mind focused on diving, they needed to bring in new training methods.Ive been doing all sorts, Daley said. Any type of exercise you can imagine Ive been doing it.Jane wants me to do kick-boxing. I do ballet, I do spin classes. We do weight training, gymnastics, trampolining, pilates, yoga, plyometrics stuff. Anything you can imagine weve tried, because we want to make sure were athletes for not just in the diving pool.He also listens to hypnosis tapes for 10 minutes every morning via an app, and has started Spanish lessons. His teammates have noticed a change -- Tonia Couch, who was in the Team GB squad alongside Daley in Beijing and London, said: I wouldnt even look at him and think there was pressure on him. Hes so cool. Hes diving amazingly and its the best Ive seen him.British divings performance director Alexei Evanguluv, who was previously critical in 2012 of Daleys commercial interests, feels the same.Hes become such a professional athlete in comparison with the last quadrennial, said Evanguluv. He was a young boy; he was more excited rather than professional and focusing. He is readier now than he has ever been before.Come Monday, Daleys third Olympics will get underway. When he stands on the 10m platform for his synchronized dive alongside his flatmate Dan Goodfellow, hell be in a good place.Going into Beijing I was 14-years-old. I guess I didnt really know ... I knew what the Olympics were, obviously, but I went into it thinking, Ah, its another competition. A 14-year-old doesnt really think about the scale of things and whos watching and how big it is.Going into 2012 there was a lot of pressure with it being a home Games. I had a lot more difficult dives, there was a lot going on and I had to deal with lots of things.Then going into this Olympic Games I feel Im at my most consistent, my most ready, physically, psychologically, everything.He heads into the Games encouraged by the gold medals he won at the 2015 World Championships in the team event and the double haul at this years European Championships.In the stands watching him here in Rio will be his mother, his two brothers, his fiancé and grandparents. And looking down on him will be his late father Rob. Hell be going for gold for all of them.It was always our dream to win an Olympic gold medal and to do it for my dad would be absolutely amazing. Its not just me standing up on that board, its everyone around me: coaches, friends, family, support staff, everyone that gets you to that point.Im ready to go there, put up a fight against those Chinese divers to try to take away the gold medal. Cheap Wholesale Nike Sb Nz . The Cincinnati Reds remain perfect with their speedy rookie outfielder in the starting lineup. Nike Sb Sale Online Nz . LOUIS -- Theres no telling how these wacky World Series games will end. http://www.nikesboutletnz.com/ . Didier Drogba gave away the penalty that put Senegal one goal away from a major upset, but the veteran striker will get another chance -- probably his last -- at the World Cup after Salomon Kalous injury-time strike sealed the Ivorians place in Brazil next year. Nike Sb Outlet Nz .25 million option on reliever Jose Veras. Nike Sb Shoes For Sale Nz . Just not the game. Kyle Palmieri scored two straight goals in the third period to rally the Anaheim Ducks past the Philadelphia Flyers 3-2 on Tuesday night. PARIS -- An alleged doping cover-up that enabled Russian medalists to compete at the 2012 London Olympics even had a codename: The Total protection project.The alleged scheme is detailed in an email seized by prosecutors in France. The email was dated July 30, 2014, and sent from an address used by Valentin Balakhnichev, then head of the Russian athletics federation. The Associated Press saw a copy of the email on Friday.The email alleges that officials at the IAAF, track and fields governing body, strong-armed Russian authorities into a doping cover-up involving Olympic and world champions. It alleged the total projection project allowed several Russian athletes to race in London and win medals, even though they were suspected of blood doping and should not have competed. The scheme continued into 2013, the email alleged.Then, it complained, IAAF officials went back on the deal by pursuing doping cases against six Russian athletes. The previous month, the IAAFs anti-doping department had informed Balakhnichev, in a separate email also seen by the AP, that it was pursuing suspected blood doping cases against five Russian race walkers and a runner.The July 30 response from Balakhnichevs email address warned of dire consequences and a huge black spot for the IAAF if Russian athletes were pursued and threatened to go public about the alleged cover-up.We will not remain silent. It was not us who started this game. It was the IAAF project and the IAAF shall be the key victim of future scandal, said the email.We have enough evidence to prove criminal activities of the IAAF people, it added.The IAAF president at the time was Lamine Diack, now under investigation in France on money laundering and corruption charges.French authorities found the email in a search of the Paris region home of Habib Cisse, a lawyer who was a legal adviser to Diack. Cisse is also under investigation by French magistrates, faciing a charge of receiving corrupt payments.dddddddddddd Cisse denies wrongdoing.In a statement posted Friday on his verified Facebook page, Balakhnichev said he did not write the email and that he believed the correspondence was falsified. Balakhnichev has been banned from track and field for life for his role in the extortion of Russian marathon runner Liliya Shobukhova.French newspaper Le Monde and German broadcaster ARD first reported on the email.Le Monde reported that another letter said to have been written by Balakhnichev in June 2014 alleged that IAAF representatives had invented the total protection moniker for the cover-up scheme.We think the only way to avoid an enormous scandal about the covering up of numerous anti-doping violations, implicating numerous IAAF officials, is to continue to keep the situation `under the table, as has been the case all these years, Le Monde quoted the letter as saying.The IAAF, now led by Sebastian Coe, said it could not comment in detail on the developments.It is clear we all need to get to the bottom of what has happened which is what the French criminal investigation is doing and we continue to assist them as required. We are taking bold steps to safeguard the sport in the future with the reforms we are introducing, an IAAF statement said.Le Monde reported that another note seized by French investigators alleged that one of Diacks sons, former IAAF marketing consultant Papa Massata Diack, had asked for between 300,000 euros ($318,000) and 700,000 euros ($743,000) to cover up cases involving five Russian athletes, aside from Shobukhova.Papa Massata Diack, who lives in Senegal, is wanted in France for questioning and is subject to an Interpol request for his arrest.---AP Sports Writer James Ellingworth in Moscow contributed. ' ' '