When Tom Daley went to the Tokyo Olympics his motivation was clear: after two bronze medals, in London in 2012 and Rio in 2016, he was going for gold. In front of an empty stadium, he finally did it, winning the synchronised 10m platform with Matty Lee.
Standing at the side of the pool of the London Aquatics Centre, a few days before setting off for Paris, the diver explains that this time around things are a little different.
“I have won an Olympic gold medal,” he says. “For me, the Olympic gold medal this time is having my kids there to watch. That’s really the thing I’m looking forward to most going into this competition.”
In the stands in Paris will be Daley’s screenwriter husband, Dustin Lance Black, whom he married in 2017, and their two sons, six-year-old Robbie and Phoenix Rose, who turned one in April.
They will be there to witness Daley become the first British diver to compete at a fifth Olympics – in the synchro with the 24‑year‑old Noah Williams – after starting as a 14‑year‑old in Beijing in 2008.
Now the senior citizen of the 11‑strong Team GB diving team, he still looks at least a decade younger than his 30 years, but admits his body tells a different story. These days he wakes up sore and needs “a lot more machinery to help”, including a special pair of heated trousers he wears to the pool.
“In 2008, I could be like ‘here we go’ and off I went. Now it takes a lot more for me to warm up, a lot more specific conditioning, prehab exercises,” he says. “But in terms of the dives themselves, when I’m diving, the dives look good.”
Although his body may hurt he is in a better mental space. “In Beijing, London and Rio, I tortured myself through the whole experience because I wanted to do well so badly. This time, I have got the gold medal. I have done everything I wanted to do in the sport … so this feels to me like a bonus year where I can enjoy.”
Aware this could be his last Olympics – “I don’t know about six. But I said that the last time and here I am” – he is determined to savour every moment, aware that in previous competitions a trauma response set off by the intensity of the experience has wiped many memories.
“This time I want to be present, soak it in, look around and [think]: ‘Wow. All these people are watching this competition, I have worked really hard for this. Noah and I are going to give it our best shot.’ That’s going to be the big difference.”
A little over a year ago, Daley had no plans to go to Paris. He retired after Tokyo, but credits his elder son for getting him back in the pool. In the spring of 2023 he and his family visited the US Olympic & Paralympic Museum in Colorado Springs, where his second son was born. On seeing Daley’s Olympic ring, a present from his parents, staff welcomed him with a standing ovation and then a video exploring what it means to be an Olympian reduced him to tears.
“Robbie turned to me and asked: ‘What’s the matter, papa?’ I just said: ‘I miss diving and I miss the Olympics.’ And Lance looked at me, like: ‘Oh, no – I know what this means … ’” When Robbie said he wanted to see his dad dive at an Olympics, “that was that”.
“There were all of these hurdles to overcome,” Daley says. “So I started off really easily … without really telling anyone because I wanted to see how my body felt. I didn’t even know I could be sore in some of the places that I was.”
This time around, Daley is not entering individual events, only the synchro with Williams, who as a 12-year-old watched him at the 2012 London Games. They have been paired since November when it became clear Lee – who first dived with Daley in 2018 – would not recover from an injury in time.
“We’ve worked together as a team really well and started to get consistent scores just as high, if not higher, than some of the ones we were doing with Matty. We’re in a really good space going into Paris,” Daley says.
Being a five-time Olympian is, he says, quite strange. “I had it in my mind I wanted to go to five Olympic Games but I never thought it would be possible. I’m just super excited to get out there and give it my best shot.
“It’s something nice to look back on in 20 or 30 years’ time. When I’m sitting there not doing much, I can look back and say: ‘You know what, I managed to go to five Olympic Games and I will be pretty happy with that.’”
