Sixteen years ago, when I first met Tom Daley during the school holidays in Plymouth, he produced a string of nonchalant catchphrases, including “blah-di-blah”, while addressing his growing fame and revealing that his two brothers kept telling him he was “rubbish” as he prepared for his first Olympic Games.
Daley, who was only 13, had just become the youngest-ever European diving champion and he admitted finding it strange that he should feature in glossy magazines before the 2008 Olympics in Beijing: “It’s weird. Normally I’m the one pulling out pictures of athletes to put on my wall. Now younger kids will be seeing my picture.”
I remembered those words while watching a video Daley posted to his 3.1 million followers on Instagram in mid-June as, aged 30, he showed off his typically ripped torso while walking on his hands before flipping back to his feet again to flash a thumbs-up sign beneath a blue Californian sky. “Celebrating being officially selected for my 5th Olympic Games!” Daley wrote alongside two partying emojis.
Daley and his husband, the film-maker and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, are parents to Robbie and Phoenix and the story of his Olympic comeback has the glittery touch of Hollywood. At the 2021 Tokyo Games, Daley won his first Olympic gold in the 10m synchro and his third bronze when he finished on the individual podium.
It seemed a beautiful ending to a glorious career also punctuated by much pain in his youth, as Daley withstood bullying at school and the death of his father six days after he turned 17. He endured Olympic disappointment before coming out as Britain’s most high-profile and beloved gay sportsman who won three world championships while making knitting cool.
In sporting retirement he moved to California and, awaiting the birth of Phoenix, Daley and Black took Robbie to the Olympic and Paralympic museum in Colorado Springs. Daley said later: “We had the best time and at the end we went into a room to watch a video about what it means to be an athlete and see those inspirational journeys. I just wept. I couldn’t control myself. I hadn’t grieved diving.”
A startling new idea took hold of Daley when Robbie said: “Papa, I want to see you dive at the Olympics.” For Daley, “coming out of that museum, something changed and that has lit a new fire inside me to see where this goes”.
He is now going to Paris as the first British diver to participate in five Olympic Games. Matty Lee, his gold medal-winning partner from Tokyo, is injured after spinal surgery and so Daley will dive in the 10m synchro with the 24-year-old Noah Williams. At the London Olympics, 12 years ago, Williams had been in the crowd watching his hero’s dejection and elation.
Daley just missed the podium in the synchro with Pete Waterfield but, after vicious abuse on social media, he found redemption and won his first Olympic medal, a bronze in the 10m platform.
Williams, who was crushed to finish 27th out of 29 divers in the individual event in Tokyo, sounds galvanised now in the company of a sporting great: “I don’t think people realise how good Tom is. There is no one else in the world who could have two years out and come back and be a world medallist and world champion. He’s insanely hard-working and talented. He’s miles above everyone else.”
Despite being based on different continents, Daley and Williams have been a revelation. They sealed their Olympic place by winning silver at the world championships in February. At that same event in Doha, Daley helped GB clinch gold in the mixed team competition. Daley and Williams have since finished on World Cup podiums in Germany and China.
“Noah is great,” Daley said. “It’s gone really well, considering the fact that we are a really new pair and not able to train together all the time because I’m in LA and he’s in London.”
Williams was even more exuberant: “I’ve got Tom so that’s my secret weapon.”
It was another reminder of that first interview I did with the teenage Daley. In 2008 he told me he was taking his lucky monkey to Beijing: “I know he probably isn’t lucky but, because I’ve been taking him with me for a long time, I don’t want to stop.”
Daley blushed, saying: “He doesn’t have a name. He’s just my lucky monkey.”
Sixteen years on Daley is the father figure and lucky charm of an ambitious GB Olympic diving squad. As always there could be drama or glory, and tears of joy or heartache, in Paris. Yet, whatever the outcome, Daley’s historic fifth successive Olympic Games is the defining marker of a supreme competitor.
