The British pair won the men's 10m platform synchronised event at the Tokyo Olympics (which was held in 2021 due to the Covid restrictions), but they won't be able to repeat this year. The doctor had told him that his injury wouldn't improve naturally and that surgery was the only solution, so the Leeds-born athlete agreed.

Lee, who also triumphed at the 2022 Commonwealth Games alongside Noah Williams, will miss the Olympics as a result of the treatment. "The surgery was successful but my surgeon told me that my nerve was very pinched and it took longer than expected to remove the bulging disc without damaging the nerve," the 26-year-old athlete said on social networking site Instagram.

Lee took to Instagram to explain that the surgery "went well" and that it was a "good decision" to pull out of Paris, although he admitted that he was "very sad" to miss the competition (from 26 July to 11 August 2024).

The 2015 European Games champion in Baku, Azerbaijan, added: "It's obvious what this means for me this year, which is very sad, but the reason I'm looking so happy in hospital is because I'm no longer suffering from chronic pain, we've found a solution and I've gor something to work on".

Meanwhile, his former competition partner still has a chance of repeating the gold in Paris if he and his new partner Williams can maintain the quality they showed in the Japanese pools three years ago.