by Daley, Tom
My first trip to London.
He also talked to us about expectation and the fact that each event we would do would be different, and described how he struggled mentally at one Olympics more than at the others. He said the difference between winning and losing was down to strength of mind and wanted to pass on advice about how to cope with the level of training and expectation before big events. I made everybody laugh by telling them that it was my ambition to break Steve’s record of winning five Olympic gold medals. I’m regretting that now!
Privately, I spoke to him about a number of things, like how he felt about competitions. He also reassured me that while sometimes training would be hard and relentless, it would pay off in the end. He was particularly helpful when I said I was worried about being unable to sleep before major competitions. He told me that our bodies can still perform on a lot less sleep than we are sometimes used to. That really reassured me and therefore I started to get to sleep a lot easier.
Mum and Dad all glammed up for a day out.
Leon advised me to get an agent because other opportunities might be available to me. A lady called Natasha helped me get a sponsorship contract with Adidas, which has been ongoing. When the first set of kit arrived, it was like Christmas. I got loads of different tops and tracksuits in my size but it was great because William and Ben got the odd pair of trainers. Around six months later, I switched agents to Professional Sports Group after they secured me a deal with the healthy school food brand, Sodexo. A team was starting to build around me and it felt good.
Qualifying For Beijing
AT THE START OF 2007, THERE WAS A VERY REAL CHANCE I COULD MAKE IT TO THE BEIJING OLYMPICS THE FOLLOWING YEAR AND ANDY HAD DEVISED A PROGRAMME TO HELP ME PROGRESS. HE DIDN’T TELL ME TOO MUCH ABOUT IT IN ADVANCE – IT WAS MORE ON A ‘NEED TO KNOW’ BASIS, SO I DIDN’T FEEL SCARED OR OVERWHELMED.
Everyone was keen for me to get some more experience and exposure on the bigger stage if I was to stand a chance of qualifying for the Olympics. They wanted to build my experience up slowly, so that year I also started on the FINA Grand Prix Series, which was my biggest step so far on the international circuit. It is a series of six or seven meets each year that feature men’s and women’s 3m and 10m synchro and individual events. In each one you can accumulate points and become the overall winner, and aside from the Olympics and Commonwealth Games these are the biggest events on the globe because you are up against every country’s top divers.
I made my FINA debut in Montreal, Canada, at the end of April, guided by Andy and the British National Diving Performance Director, Steve Foley. I was competing against the world’s best divers – Olympic, Commonwealth and European champions. They were looking for a top twelve finish. If I managed that Steve said it would be ‘outstanding’ and he would be happy. My best dive was my armstand back triple with tuck and I beat the qualifying standard and came tenth with 395.95. Everyone was delighted.
After the promising start, during the second week of June I flew out to the FINA event in Madrid, where I started to compete with a harder list of dives. I was diving against more top divers, including China’s Hu Jia, who had won the 10m gold in Athens in 2004. It felt strange to see the people in the flesh that I had studied on TV. I thought everyone looked really different to how I imagined they would do. I was so pumped and scored 9.5s in five of the six dives in the prelim round and qualified second behind Hu by just seven points with a score of 480.050, my best score to date.
In the semis, I continued to put in a strong performance and came second again. In the finals, I fought it out for the bronze medals with the Ukrainian Konstantin Milyaev, who overtook me on the last two dives. China’s Yang Liguang won the gold with 514.150 ahead of Hu, who got the silver with 510.250. In the end, I was just six points off a medal with 419.70 but I was still over the moon with my performance. Being on the big stage just didn’t faze me; it just excited me and made me perform even better. I loved the buzz of it.
From each event I took something important away. After that event, I started to work with the sports psychologist to try and reverse my scores, so rather than getting 480 in the prelims, 465 in the semis and 420 in the finals, I did it the opposite way round and my scores went up. I had never competed in three rounds before and wasn’t used to doing that many dives in a day, so I learned I needed to pace myself and keep my energy levels high.
As I started to go away more, it meant I was missing school, which at the time I thought was really cool. That was until I got back to school and realized all the work I needed to do. I did have to catch up so tried to do as much when I was away as I could.
In July, Callum and I competed at the ASA National Diving Championships, our first Senior National competition together, at Sheffield’s Pond’s Forge. We took an early lead by gaining the first 9s of the competition and for our third dive, the reverse two and a half somersaults with tuck, we achieved our highest mark of 9.5. We performed consistently throughout the final and finished on the top spot with a score of 388.38 points. Everything had gone to plan and it felt great. We had really enjoyed ourselves and knew there was room for improvement. We were looking forward to building on our performance.
THE FOLLOWING DAY WAS THE INDIVIDUAL EVENT AND I EASILY QUALIFIED FOR THE SEMI-FINALS AFTER GETTING MY FIRST 10 OF THE COMPETITION WITH MY REVERSE TWO AND A HALF SOMERSAULTS WITH TUCK, AND IN THE SEMIS TOOK THE TOP SPOT WITH 456.45 POINTS.
In the final I was up against Southampton’s Blake Aldridge and Gareth Jones, who took an early lead over me. But going into the third round I hit my reverse two and a half somersaults hard and secured two 10s to take the lead. After gaining good scores in my final two dives, I took the National title with 444.20 points and became the youngest person to win the event for fifty-one years. It felt like a massive achievement and I was really proud of myself.
I was back at Pond’s Forge again in September for the final leg of the FINA Series that year. At that stage I wasn’t doing every single competition because my team manager was still pacing my performances, but after Pete was forced to withdraw due to injury, I was to dive in his place. It felt pretty daunting going into the competition because I was facing what looked likely to be the Olympic line-up for Beijing – it was packed with world champions. I just focused on what I had to do and put all my efforts into it. I was slightly disappointed after dropping a couple of my dives and in the end I came fourth with 441.25, agonizingly close to Russia’s Gleb Galperin, who took the third podium place with 446.55 points. China’s Lin Yue and Zhou Luxin won the gold and silver medals with 534.90 and 505.95, respectively.
In the synchro competition Callum and I earned GB a respectable fifth-placed finish with a personal best of 388.89. Again, the Chinese topped the podium with a score of 485.64. It was a fun day and we really enjoyed being in front of a home crowd, who are always incredibly supportive.
One day towards the end of the year, as I came through the gates after a normal day at school and climbed into the car, Dad gave me an exercise book. He had a funny smirk on his face. I opened it and on the first page it said ‘Wayne Rooney’, then ‘Theo Walcott’ on the next, ‘Andy Murray’ and then, on the next page, ‘Tom Daley’. ‘You’. I turned over. ‘Have’. ‘Been’. ‘Nominated’. ‘For The Young Sports Personality Of The Year’.
‘THAT’S PRETTY COOL,’ I SAID.
‘KEEP TURNING,’ DAD SAID, A TEAR LEAKING FROM HIS EYE.
TURNING TO THE FINAL PAGE, I READ: ‘AND YOU HAVE WON.’
Dad was blubbing full on then! It felt amazing but I had to keep it a secret because I was due to go away to Montreal in Canada for the CAMO invitational meet, so I filmed a video link to say thank you for the award and how honoured I felt.
COMPETING IN CANADA WITH BLAKE.
In Canada, I channelled my pride into the competition and in the individual event, drawing a succession of five perfect 10s, I eventually finished sixth with 451.90. In the synchro later that day, I was diving with my new partner, Blak
e Aldridge. Steve Foley had put us together to see how we dived but we hadn’t done any preparation. It seemed the combination was a winner, though, as we picked up our first gold medal with 440.10 points. We scored a run of 9s, 9.5s and 10s, beating Pete and Leon, who faltered on the fourth and fifth dives, finishing in second place with 432.99. I was gutted about missing the Sports Personality of the Year ceremony but everyone made a fuss of me and when I went back to school they had made a banner to say well done.
I never really spoke about my sport at school; I just tried to be normal. My mates did football and rugby and none of them came to see me dive or anything like that. But lots of people knew of my success because of my being in the papers. I think they all thought I made loads of money, but obviously that is not the case in most Olympic sports. They always saw each other more outside school than I could manage, but I did go to the cinema and bowling some weekends and I never felt like I was missing out.
At the start of the New Year, 2008, I competed at the British National Championships in Manchester Aquatics Centre. Virtually the whole family came – Mum, Dad, William and Ben, both sets of grandparents, some aunts, uncles and about five cousins. Seeing the people I love did then, and always does, drive me to do well. It also felt good to try and prove myself on home soil.
In the individual event I was trailing at the midway point and knew I needed to pull something special out of the bag to get into the top two.
By my final dive, I needed almost perfect scores to win. I managed one of the best dives I had ever done, coming away with 9s, but still didn’t think I could beat Pete, who was in the lead by quite a few points.
But Pete dropped his last dive for 5s and 6s, meaning that I had won with 471.70 to his score of 462.60. It felt brilliant and everyone was over the moon for me. There’s a video of Dad somewhere upstairs and you can hear him letting out a succession of small gulps and then a giant sob as he realized I had beaten Pete to the title.
HE KEPT SAYING, ‘HE’S THE BRITISH CHAMPION! YOU ALWAYS SEE SPORTS FANS FOLLOWING OTHER PEOPLE AROUND, NOW THEY ARE FOLLOWING MY SON AROUND – COOL!’
In the synchro event Leon and Pete had withdrawn because Leon had a hernia so Blake and I automatically qualified to go to the World Cup in July to try out for the Olympics, which was brilliant. We continued to dive consistently, matching each other’s form in the air, and won the event with 431.25 points. Our best round, the fifth, saw us score over 90 for our backward three and a half somersaults with tuck.
Later in January, we went back to Madrid for another FINA World Series event and in the synchro we were up against some of the best pairings in the world, including the Chinese, Germans, Russians and Canadians. Blake and I continued to perform well and secured a silver medal with 417.93 points. It wasn’t the best we had performed, but we were getting good marks for synchronization and did a really good inward three and a half tuck. We really felt as if we were pushing the Chinese pair, Yang Liguang and Hao Zhang, and even though we didn’t catch them, they knew we were close and we scored above 400, which was our aim. At that point, despite the huge age difference – Blake was twenty-five and I was only thirteen, our relationship was really good. I looked up to him as an older brother or uncle figure and we got on well at first.
The next day, with the Chinese divers Hu Jia and Yang Liguang ahead, Pete and I fought it out for bronze in the individual competition. I was determined to stay close to the Chinese and even scored four perfect 10s on my first dive. After Pete dropped his back two and a half somersaults and two and a half twists, the way was clear for me to overtake him and I performed a good back three and a half tuck. I was still on a very low degree of difficulty then so got 9s and 9.5s all the way through, finishing on a final score of 495.45. Yang Liguang got silver with 506.55 and Hu won gold on 540.75.
Most dives take about three months to learn, but after that event Andy taught me one dive in three days. I was only using the reverse two and a half tuck at that point and one day he suggested I have a go off 5m and then he told me that we’d learn the reverse three and a half off 10m. In the next three days we did all the somersaults on the land, then in the rig on the land and then in the rig in the pool, and by day three I was doing it off 10m like I’d been doing it for months. The feeling when you do a new dive is amazing because you never know what it’s going to be like. When you hit the water it’s such a relief and you immediately want to do it again to ingrain it into your head.
That year it was competitions back to back and I was starting to get used to being away and felt less and less homesick every time.
BY MY FINAL DIVE, I NEEDED ALMOST PERFECT SCORES TO WIN. I MANAGED ONE OF THE BEST DIVES I HAD EVER DONE, COMING AWAY WITH 9S, BUT STILL DIDN’T THINK I COULD BEAT PETE, WHO WAS IN THE LEAD BY QUITE A FEW POINTS.
I always called home regularly and had my laptop with me so I could speak to my friends on Facebook. Being away was feeling more and more like an adventure. In February, it was on to Beijing for the FINA World Cup and Olympics qualifier. A field of over 300 divers were competing for 136 places at the summer’s Games. I, like all the other divers from team GB, had a lot of expectation on my shoulders but I had no fear, I just felt really relaxed and enthusiastic about the event. It was the longest time away from home though, as I was going for almost four weeks, but my homesickness was getting better by then and I normally only felt wobbly for a day or two.
DAD HAD DECIDED TO COME OUT TO THE EVENT ON HIS OWN WITHOUT A GUARANTEE OF ACTUALLY SEEING ME BECAUSE HE HAD NOT BEEN ABLE TO GET A TICKET AND WAS RELYING ON BUYING ONE FROM A TOUT – HE MANAGED TO GET ONE FOR THREE TIMES THE FACE VALUE.
Thinking about it now, he was really brave to come out on his own. He always came everywhere. Mum helped me pack my clothes, as always, and after my previous food experiences in China I was a bit worried, so made sure I packed some emergency Pot Noodles, just in case.
The Chinese are like machines. They work so hard and are pushed by their coaches. It doesn’t matter if they are injured because they have other people who can dive just as well. They go to year-round boot-camp-style training designed to produce gold medals around the world and most of them spend very little time on their school work; it is all about their sport. They have dominated the sport, particularly the women, for a long time. Fu Mingxia, for example, is probably the most famous female Chinese diver after winning four Olympic gold medals in diving, two for 10m individual and two for 3m springboard.
She went to a Beijing Sports School when she was nine and trained for seven hours a day, six days a week. She only saw her parents once a year. When the Chinese are younger, their parents make the decision whether they want them to be musicians, well educated or sportsmen or sportswomen and they keep working at it for their whole life. The diving training sounds brutal. The Chinese coaches are very forceful but are normally technically excellent. It’s a very different culture; one that I’m sure I would do really badly in.
When we arrived in Beijing, some of the other GB divers – Tonia, Blake, Stacie Powell and Ben Swain – and I managed to sneak into the Water Cube. There wasn’t much security so we crept into the complex and just kept going until we reached the pool area. I was blown away. It was amazing and I kept thinking, ‘This is what the Olympic pool is going to look like.’ It was really futuristic and brightly coloured – like something out of Mario Brothers. The walls were inflatable so you could squeeze them in and they would pop back out again. There were 18,000 seats, which is the largest number of people I would ever have dived in front of. We all managed to rush up to the 10m boards and take each other’s pictures before a security guard saw us and chased us away!
On the fourth day, Blake and I stepped forward for the synchro event. There was a lot riding on it because we needed a top eight finish to guarantee the GB team a place at the Olympics. We faltered in the prelims finishing in ninth – at one stage thinking we might not make it – but were more confident in the final and everything seemed to come together for us. The Chi
nese audience, who regard diving as a national treasure, really got behind us. Our first dive, a forward one and a half somersaults in piked position, earned us 9.5s and we dived consistently from then. The Chinese pair were out front from the very first dive and took the gold with 482.46, Germany collected the silver with 466.74 and we took the bronze with 446.07. Blake and I were thrilled. It really felt like all our hard work had been rewarded. However, it was still no guarantee we would make the Olympics because while we had assured Great Britain a place, we were still due to face Pete and Leon in June for the decider.
The following day was the individual event. In the semi-finals, Pete finished fourth out of eighteen while I was ninth. The Chinese were cheering almost as much for me as they were for their own divers, which gave me a boost. In the finals I scored 9s for my opening dive – a back two and a half somersaults, one and a half twists, to place second in round two. I then earned 8.5s for my forward three and a half. By halfway through, I was fourth with my most difficult dives to come. I was always going to be at a disadvantage as my tariffs were lower than those of the other competitors. And with the pressure mounting, I missed my armstand back triple and plummeted down the rankings. I knew I needed to stay upbeat – and did a solid back three and a half. For my final dive, a reverse three and a half, I was standing on the edge thinking I just had to go for it. I remember it being a great takeoff, squeezing into my tuck shape, slow spinning and kicking out perfectly, and I was rewarded by the judges with four 10s. I came seventh with 480.40.