Tom Daley had always said that winning a bronze medal would be the equivalent of gold in the 10m platform dive, such was the standard of competition. The teenage Brit duly finished third after half a dozen wonderful dives, collected his bronze and celebrated as if it were gold.

It was a final of astonishing quality won by American David Boudia, who constantly followed Daley with dives that were a tiny bit better. The favourite, China's Qiu Bo, won silver and looked as if he had suffered a bereavement.

The evening started controversially. If anybody in the crowd questioned Tom Daley's tenacity, they weren't doing so after last night's first dive. He got out of the pool, face stiffened, talked to the referee and gestured at the crowd. Camera flashes had put him off and he had scored a disappointing 75.6.

The judges allowed a re-dive, he composed himself, completed his backward two-and-a-half somersaults with twists to boot – and scored 91.8. From there, he didn't look back.

Daley had been building up to this moment for years. The 18-year-old is already a veteran – sporting prodigy at 13, Olympic finalist at 14, world champion at 15. But for Plymouth's favourite son (give or take Francis Drake and Michael Foot) the focus over the past few years has been London 2012 – not simply qualifying, but doing himself proud. His father's death earlier this year only seemed to add to the pressure.

Diving is the most unforgiving of sports. Not only is there the absurd difficulty of the twisting, somersaulting and non-splashing, there is also the danger. Many divers have caused themselves hideous injuries throwing themselves from a 10m board, attempting to strike the water head first at almost 40mph. Daley has a scar on the top of his head, one on his forehead, and a weird muscular stalactite on his upper arm from a torn triceps. He has said that every time he gets on the 10m board he is terrified. So are we, watching.

Every diver dives six times – if he dives brilliantly five times and screws up the sixth, it's Goodnight Vienna.

Watching Daley is a reminder of the transience of it all. The boy wonder is already talking about life post-retirement. Daley says each dive is like having a car crash and that he will be lucky to squeeze in two more Olympics. By 2020, and at 26 years of age, his body will have taken such a battering it is impossible to know what state it will be in. This is not so much a young man's game as a boy's – when Qiu Bo received 25 perfect 10s to score a record-breaking 609.20 in the 2011 Diving World Series, he was only 18.

Each new dive takes around three years to perfect, and Daley says he often screams in pain. His coach, Andy Banks, recently said that as a youngster Tom got so lonely and distressed away from home he threatened to jump out of the window if he was left alone.

But he is a character of immense strength. At school he was bullied for his celebrity; and earlier this year his dad, Rob, died after a five-year battle with cancer. Yet he has come through everything with dignity and charm. Sometimes he sounds so mature that it is easy to forget he is still a kid living at home with his mother and brothers, waiting for his A-level results.

In the pool, he was every inch the adult as he crept up the field. The fourth dive was his most difficult. Daley took his time, placed his arms by his side with military precision and scored his highest of the competition, 98.05. After the fifth dive he had a 0.15 lead. Daley returned to the shower strutting.

But for his final dive he had chosen a low tariff. He executed it almost perfectly, scored 90 points, but Boudia and Bo came back with dives of 100+. It was the best of possible bronzes for Daley.

While world champion Bo was inconsolable, Daley's team threw him in the diving pool and he made the biggest splash of his career. On the podium, he couldn't stop grinning. He held up his medal, showed it around the arena and lifted it to heaven.

This one's for you, Dad.