As Tom Daley stood poolside, still revved and wide-eyed from six rounds of brutally focused 10m synchro diving, fresh from stepping up on to the podium with Noah Williams to take his fifth Olympic medal, a plastic juice cup landed at his feet.

It had been thrown, or dropped, from the tiers above where his sons, Robbie and Phoenix, were sitting. Daley snapped straight back into dad mode, that old muscle memory kicking in, and put it in his tracksuit trouser pocket. Half an hour later, the cup was still there as he walked through the mixed zone (purple juice: possibly grape), a companion piece to the silver medal around his neck; and a neat little note in the jumbling together of bits and bobs – a laptop here, rice cakes there, a rogue sock – that will be familiar to parents of young children everywhere.

It felt a suitable end note in Daley’s progress to these Games, which he had billed, that game head already on, as an Olympics he was simply happy to be at, to compete in front of his kids and husband after the starkness of Tokyo.

In the event, Daley and Williams were here to do a great deal more than take part, as they reeled off six dives in quick succession – this is an utterly gruelling, blink and you miss it event – to take silver behind the extraordinary Chinese pair of Junjie Lian and Hao Yang.

Daley would reveal that his ­training with Williams had boiled down to working together in com­petition a few times and a week spent by the pool at his house in Los Angeles when ­Williams had a shoulder injury. Plus, the application of his own vast and clear-headed knowledge of this elite event, a world Daley has been involved in since the age of 12.

He spoke about sacrifice, life ­balance and the struggle to compete while preserving some part of himself outside the insanity of total com­petition. There is a theme here in British aquatics, with similar talk from Adam Peaty after his own silver medal on Sunday.

Certainly, the 10m synchro was a genuinely fun, multilayered collection of people. At one end, Gary Hunt, a 40-year-old cliff diver, now com­peting for France via his wife, a delightful human being and all‑round cool guy, who first got the hint he would not be diving at his last home Games in London after com­peting against the prodigious 12‑year‑old Daley in 2006.

Ukraine’s teenage pair, fifth-place finishers, said their training had been disrupted by rockets falling over Kyiv and that their fathers are serving in the military. Australia’s Cassiel Rousseau was back for another Olympics, a hugely likable mulleted figure, unveiling fresh tattoo work at each final.

Above this, in their own clean, clear space, were the Chinese pair, the ultimate human expression of the high-performance programme. China now has two diving golds from two. That much longed-for clean sweep is on.

Hunt, aka the Michael Jordan of cliff diving, likes to warm up by juggling. Daley has spent the last ­Olympic cycle doing something similar with his own life. There may have been another sportsman who has spoken at length about the extraordinary support of his husband (or indeed his wife) in putting their own career on hold, juggling ­childcare, making the domestic life work, as Daley did here. But none spring to mind.

This was just a brilliant competi­tion, as it always seems to be. The Aquatics Centre is one of two new‑build facilities for the Games. It’s a lovely thing, with a swooping wavy timber beamed roof, rising up next to the Saint-Denis ring road like a giant alien mushroom.

For Daley and his partners, the story of the past 16 years has been trying to keep up with China. Daley has spoken about the mind-boggling difficulty levels of competing against opponents selected from a 1.4 billion ­population and a sporting culture of such extreme dedication.

China has won 27 of 32 possible Olympic diving gold medals since Beijing 2008, including all but one (guess who?) at Tokyo last time out. In Daley’s favour is perspective. He remains a paradox, a child prodigy turned fully grown celebrity pressure magnet, out there ­competing in one of the more knife-edge disciplines, whose superpower is, of all things, being a calm and well‑adjusted human being. How do you ­manage that exactly? And can everyone have some?

There was a genuine crackle in the air as the divers walked out, Daley and Williams drawing the loudest cheer. This event is front-loaded. You walk in, strip off, get on the stairs and suddenly you’re in an Olympic final, out there already falling in space.

Domonic Bedggood and ­Rousseau went first for Australia and produced a solid, slightly splashy opener. Canada were slick and peppy. Team GB followed Germany, Daley and ­Williams completely silent – “we never say a word” – before a fiddle of the trunks, a look down, then off into a lovely relaxed opening dive, nailing a 53.40 straight off.

Diving is a remarkable sport, the only event that takes place in the intermediate element, the space between earth and water, an air sport, and a thing of rare beauty at this level. Lian and Yang reeled off a 56.40 with barely a ripple, water ­falling into water. Already, China were out on their own.

Round three is where the difficulty levels kick in. With GB and Canada in a race for second this was a chance to flex and twirl and show something of yourself. Dive number four was the gamechanger. The British men could be seen flexing and stretching energetically on the way up. This was the dive they had practised most.

They eased into it hungrily, a back three and a half somersault pike, the turn at the edge of the board then a launch backwards into thin air. Before the first drops of splash had hit the pool their coaches were up hugging (there is a lot of hugging) and punching the air. A 93.6 put Daly and Williams clear in second place.

China were unmoved, producing another perfect falling leaf, each dive from this point a lap of honour. At the very end they blew the doors off with a stunning 103, out there competing in their own pocket of air ahead of the rest of the human race.

There were more hugs and a rueful kind of smile from Daley, who had also, in winning silver, given up his gold. He now has the full set of 10m medals. He may yet be back in LA, which he described as a chance for “another home Games”. But juice cups, medals, domestic shoutout; for now this felt like the completion of one kind of cycle.