Jack is back - Jack Laugher wins Commonwealth Gold medal for England.

Jack is back - Jack Laugher wins Commonwealth Gold for England.

In the general scheme of things it probably doesn't sound that impressive. But when Jack Laugher wakes up tomorrow morning he may think that his perseverance has been rewarded and even the most minor of obstacles had been overcome. You see Jack Laugher laughed in the face of defeat and never thought for a single moment that his day in the Commonwealth Games limelight would ever come around again. It was that iconic moment in a sportsman's career when all the pieces fall into place and today is your day.

Four years ago Laugher hadn't quite found that genie out of the lamp moment when everything stops and you have to believe that the impossible can happen. It was in Glasgow 2014 when the Nottingham born Jack Laugher missed out on the gold at the Commonwealth Games because maybe it wasn't quite his time or the stars were in the wrong position. The fact remains that our Jack had chosen this moment to stand on a podium with a gold medal around his neck and nobody could take that away from him.

Sport can often be both puzzling and too mysterious for words. But when Laugher stepped onto the diving board in a small corner of the Gold Coast in Australia, the angels were quite clearly singing. He knew that he could do it because he could feel it in the air, touch it, smell it, experience it and it was attainable. Jack Laugher won a gold medal for England and the facts speak for themselves. The Union Jacks were flying with a particular flourish and this was Laugher's sporting pinnacle.

Stepping forward onto the edge of the three metre springboard, toes poised, arms straight as a needle by his side, the look on Laugher's face was a picture of concentration, intense concentration. His eyes were almost surreally focussed, staring and gazing into the middle distance, briefly acknowledging his fans and family with a small smile before settling himself, bracing himself, waiting patiently.

Suddenly he was ready and prepared. Time seemed to stand still as if suspended by something that was somehow indefinable, something intangible that you couldn't quite put your finger on. Then, leaping and bouncing with remarkable agility, our Jack started jumping and then jumping higher. We were briefly reminded of a certain Tom Daley, an Olympic hero of the richest stock, who performed his dive with such immeasurable confidence in his ability that you wondered whether why we'd ever doubted that he could do it.

Then it was time for that lift off, the highest elevation, one enormous take off and then the immaculate execution. Was it a double pike or a triple pike? Laugher gave us the most amazing display of coolness and composure under pressure. There now followed sport at its most truly astonishing. Laugher, in a matter of seconds, somersaulted acrobatically before spinning, twisting and tucking his body underneath him as if he'd carried out the same dive in training a thousand times. It all looked so breathlessly easy, simple and completed in double quick time.

 It was all so natural, as natural as sleeping, breathing and eating. It was effortlessly beautiful and all over in no time at all. It took roughly the same amount of time that most of us would require to flick on a light switch, an instinctive gesture, a rabbit out of Laugher's hat. There you are. He told you could do it and he quite clearly did so this seemed the right time to dismiss any fears or doubts that might have been taken root in anybody's mind.

Before anybody could blink, Laugher's body splashed convincingly and properly into the water and the patriotic cheers from the British fans must have been like music to his ears. They whooped and yelled themselves silly, delighted to be in the right spot and the right time, possibly a bit smug and blase because privately they knew that Jack could do it. It was almost as if Laugher had put his signature to a letter that needed to be written, confirmation of his diving brilliance and his raison d'etre for being at the Commonwealth Games. Besides why else would he be here if not in the relentless pursuit of gold?

Team England have covered themselves in a fair amount of glory throughout these Commonwealth Games without quite emulating those fabulous achievements of the London Olympics six years ago. Still you  can't have everything. Recently sport has been somewhat accidentally caught up in some morally questionable tangles.

 The Aussies have cheated quite outrageously in cricket, the nasty stench of doping and drug taking continuing to hang around sport with quite the most revolting regularity. One day sport may sit down in an athletics stadium with a clean bill of health, no fingers of suspicion pointing directly in its face and with the sure knowledge that fair play and chivalrous sportsmanship has again won the day.

Jack Laugher will return to England with his gold medal and the acclamation of his British supporters ringing in his ears. When he returns to Nottingham they'll probably dig out the flags, hold quite the most jubilant street party, buy him a brewery of beers and slap him on the back with the kind of congratulations once accorded to Torvill and Dean and then celebrate Laugher's exploits for at least the rest of the year. The Commonwealth Games, rather like the Olympic Games, has once again brought the whole of the Commonwealth together with the most unifying of hugs. Jack Laugher, for one, will certainly never forget.