LONDON — David Boudia was once desperately afraid of heights — particularly the three-story height of the platform used for the men’s high-dive competition in the Olympics.

On Saturday, he dove from that same 10-meter board with such flair under such pressure that he won an unlikely Olympic gold medal on his final dive — the first U.S. men’s individual diving gold medal since Greg Louganis in 1988.

Talk about scaling new heights. In a virtual three-way tie going into the final dive with British favorite Tom Daley and China’s Qiu Bo, Boudia pulled off the highest-scoring dive by any diver the entire night to win gold.

The Chinese diver finished second. Daley was such a happy bronze medalist that both he and a bunch of his friends on Great Britain’s diving squad celebrated by jumping into the pool. American Nick McCrory, who had teamed with Boudia for a bronze medal in 10-meter synchronized diving earlier in these Olympics, was ninth.

Ten years ago, when Boudia was first learning to dive, he would sometimes climb the 33 feet to the top and climb back down again. “You have to be crazy to jump off a three-story building and dive at 35 mph,” he said Saturday night.

Boudia, now a 23-year-old communications major at Purdue, first got brave enough to do flips and somersaults off the big board by drawing stick figures of each maneuver while he was supposed to be paying attention to his ninth-grade classes.

He was able to manage his fear by mapping out dives in that way, but said he didn’t totally conquer it until after he represented the U.S. in his first Olympics in 2008, finishing fifth in one event and 10th in another. After that, Boudia began seeing a sports psychologist who helped him, and he said his faith in God deepened and helped to stabilize him mentally.

Boudia nearly didn’t have a chance at his upset at all. On Friday night in the preliminaries, he was terrible. The field was cut that night from 32 divers to 18. Boudia finished 18th, barely scraping into the Saturday morning semifinals.

But the scores are wiped away after each round. Boudia was much better in the Saturday morning semifinals, finishing third behind the two Chinese divers.

China is diving’s version of the New York Yankees — if the Yankees were better. A sports reporter from the China Daily newspaper had bemoaned the fact in print that out of the seven diving events already held at these Olympics, China had “only” won six gold medals. Losing out on another gold would be unacceptable, the journalist concluded, writing that in Olympic diving “six gold medals is like losing.”

But Chinese diver Lin Yue badly missed a dive early in the competition, knocking him out of medal contention. Daley got a rare “re-dive” on his first attempt after saying all the photo flashes from the sold-out crowd bothered him. “I wouldn’t have won the bronze medal without that,” Daley said.

By pre-determined order, Boudia followed Daley after every dive, usually while the crowd was still on its feet cheering its favorite son.

“I’m so glad I went after him,” Boudia said. “I’m an adrenaline junkie. Diving after Tom Daley and having 18,000 people erupt in the stands — my heart was racing. I was having so much fun out there.”

In the final round, Boudia, Daley and Qiu were far ahead of the other nine divers in the final. They would finish 1-2-3, but in which order?

Daley, going first, knew he was at a disadvantage. Divers can set up the order of their dives at their own discretion, and his final dive had a smaller degree of difficulty, making it harder for him to get a high score.

He scored just over 90 points. Then came Boudia, doing a back 2 1/2 somersault with 2 1/2 twists. He had purposely not looked at the scoreboard, so he didn’t know if he was ahead or behind.

On Boudia’s final dive, he scored 102.60 — the best of the evening. The Chinese diver had a chance to tie or surpass him, but fell just short on exactly the same dive with a score of 100.80 — the second-highest score of the evening.

Boudia said the moment, as great as it was, would only be the second-best of his 2012. He gets married in October, and that will trump it, he feels sure.

But it was still quite a night. “It’s so surreal right now,” Boudia said. “I can’t believe I’m an Olympic champion.”

The rest of the Olympic action Saturday:

SOCCER

Mexico earned its first Olympic gold medal in men’s soccer and left Brazil wondering if it will ever be able to add the title to its long list of triumphs. Oribe Peralta scored 29 seconds into the final at Wembley Stadium and added another goal in the second half, leading Mexico to the 2-1 upset. Hulk scored for Brazil in injury time, but Oscar missed a header in the final seconds to waste the last chance for a comeback in front of 86,162 fans.

VOLLEYBALL

Jaqueline Carvalho had 18 points and Brazil beat the United States in four sets to stop the Americans from winning their first Olympic gold medal in women’s volleyball. Brazil became the third team to repeat as gold medalist. The Soviet Union won in 1968 and 1972, while Cuba won three straight starting with the 1992 Barcelona Games. American star Destinee Hooker was held to 14 points.

BOXING

Bantamweight Luke Campbell won Britain’s first Olympic boxing gold medal in his division since 1908, dramatically knocking down rival John Joe Nevin of Ireland midway through the third round of a 14-11 victory. China’s Zou Shiming, light welterweight Roniel Iglesias, middleweight Ryota Murata and Ukrainian heavyweight Oleksandr Usyk also won their divisions. Murata narrowly won the second boxing gold in Japan’s Olympic history, beating Brazil’s Esquiva Falcao 14-13 on the strength of a two-point holding penalty against Falcao in the final round.

SAILING

Tamara Echegoyen, Angela Pumariega and Sofia Toro of Spain won the Olympic gold medal in women’s match racing, thanks in part to a boat-handling error by Australia that swept its skipper into the water. With the best-of-five match tied at one, the boats were sailing nearly side-by-side downwind in the third race in big waves on Weymouth Bay when the Australian crew lost control and its boat rolled on its side. Skipper Olivia Price was swept out of the back of the boat and her crew had to pick her up before continuing.

CANOE SPRINT

Britain’s Ed McKeever won the men’s 200-meter kayak sprint in its Olympic debut, living up to his billing as “Usain Bolt on Water.” McKeever powered his way to victory in 36.246 seconds. Spain’s Saul Craviotto Rivero was second and Canada’s Mark de Jonge beat France’s Maxim Beaumont to bronze by three-hundredths of a second.

CYCLING — MOUNTAIN BIKE

Julie Bresset picked up the victory at her first Olympics, rolling through the English countryside and waving the French flag as she finished.Bresset dominated the picturesque course at Hadleigh Farm. She took advantage of a mistake by defending gold medalist Sabine Spitz of Germany to build a massive lead, then rolled through the last of six laps all alone. Spitz wound up with the silver medal, and Georgia Gould of the United States claimed bronze. It was only the second Olympic medal in mountain biking for the Americans, who are credited with developing the sport in the 1970s.

GYMNASTICS — RHYTHMIC

Evgeniya Kanaeva became the first rhythmic gymnast to win two Olympic all-around titles, defending her gold medal from Beijing. Russia has captured the last four Olympic individual titles. It also has a chance for another four-peat in today’s group event, too.

WRESTLING — FREESTYLE

Artur Taymazov of Uzbekistan won his third straight Olympic wrestling gold in the men’s 120-kilogram division, beating Georgia’s Davit Modzmanashvili in the final. Tay- mazov joins Alexander Med- ved of the former Soviet Union and Russian great Alexander Karelin as the only male wrestlers to win gold medals in three straight games.

ELSEWHERE IN LONDON

Norway retained its Olympic title in women’s team handball by beating Montenegro 26-23. … Germany defeated the Netherlands 2-1 to win its second straight men’s field hockey title and spoil a bid for a Dutch double in the sport. … Russia collected two gold medals in race-walk events, with Elena Lashmanova winning the women’s 20-kilometer and Sergei Kirdyapkin taking the men’s 50k. Lashmanova broke the world record with a time of 1 hour, 25 minutes, 2 seconds. … David Svoboda of the Czech Republic won the men’s modern pentathlon.