SOUTHAMPTON'S Olympic star Pete Waterfield produced another memorable performance in Athens on Saturday night.

The 23-year-old from Millbrook followed up his silver medal in the synchro event with partner Leon Taylor a fortnight earlier with a fifth place finish in the 10m individual event.

It was Waterfield's highest-ever individual finish in the Olympics, and was a huge improvement on his 33rd place four years ago in Sydney in the same event.

It was the 10m platform which brought Waterfield his gold medal at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, with Taylor finishing second.

Waterfield amassed 669.24 points in the final in Greece to finish one place and just over six points ahead of Sheffield-based Taylor

Hu Jia (China) collected the gold medal with Mathew Helm (Australia) taking the silver and Tian Liang (China) the bronze.

Waterfield and Taylor had ended a 44-year medals famine for British diving with their silver medal in the 10m platform synchro on the opening day of the Games.

Not since 1960, when Elizabeth Ferris and Brian Phelps took bronzes in Rome, had Britain won a diving Olympic medal.

Taylor, originally from Cheltenham, was fifth in the platform at the World Championships in Barcelona last year and 13th in Sydney and 18th at the Atlanta Games in 1996.

Waterfield qualified for the final in sixth place in the semi-final on Saturday morning with 654.54 points.

Taylor qualified in ninth place with 628.47 points.

Helm, Canadian Alexandre Despatie and Tian Liang were the top three finishers in the semis.

Waterfield is due to have a civic reception in his honour along with his Southampton Diving Academy-based coach Lindsey Fraser tomorrow.

The pair are due at the Southampton Civic Offices at 12.30pm.