HE was on top of the world on Wednesday night when he won Britain’s first ever Olympic gold in diving.

Chris Mears and his diving partner John Laugher fought off competition from heavyweight diving nations China and the United States to win at Rio 2016.

While the pair were in floods of tears after putting in a winning performance in the men’s synchronised 3m springboard, the nation has felt a surge of pride for a man who has contributed to Team GB’s success.

But Southampton has an extra reason to be proud of the 23-year old – the building blocks to his success were created at the city’s diving academy at The Quays.

Former Olympian Lindsay Fraser said it was “a dream come true” to see her protégé win the gold.

The Hedge End coach was “glued to the screen” watching the BBC in the South of France with her sister and celebrating with champagne when Chris took home the gold.

Daily Echo:

Lindsay Fraser said her former student's win was a "dream come true"

Hours later she was “glued to her phone”, messaging Chris via WhatsApp throughout the night as he thanked her for her support.

“It’s pretty surreal, winning an Olympic medal, especially when it’s one of your own students. You don’t ever expect it come to a realisation. It was just absolutely wonderful,” she said.

After taking part in the 1980 and 1984 Olympic Games in Montreal and Los Angeles, respectively, Lindsay joined the diving school in 1999.

“These are the moments that you do it for, these are the dream moments,” she said.

Although she can claim to have had other British divers such as Stacey Powell and Peter Waterfield among her students, when Chris was nine years old he showed “special physical abilities” when he jumped 40 cms straight into the air in vertical jump.

“He was very talented at the age of nine,” she said. “He stood and did a vertical jump 40 centimetres in the air. That means he could jump really high. We knew he had special physical abilities then. He jumped as high as he can.”

But while he showed great prowess in the pool, he would eventually suffer a major setback while at a diving competition in Sydney, Australia.

Daily Echo:

Chris Mears trained at The Quays in Southampton as a boy

Away from home without Lindsay, or even his parents, he collapsed by the pool side with the life-threatening Epstein Barr virus.

“He was losing balance and falling over, his team mates thought it he was being silly,” she said. “It was only because the hospital in Sydney was literally around the corner that they were able to give him life-saving surgery.”

He collapsed with a ruptured spleen, losing five pints of blood, before leaving hospital a month later after having his spleen removed.

He lost three stone and had to pass his GCSE’s based on his predicted scores.

“It took him a long time to recover his motivation, Lindsay said.

Three years later he was a finalist in the London 2012 games and another four after that he gold medals in the European, Commonwealth, and now the Olympic games.

Lindsay said “it’s pretty much a fairy tale”.

“I just helped him to be able to his, to get him to do the diving,” she said. “To have the icing on the cake, the final inches that allowed him and Jack to be able to create the results, that was down to him.”