My Story

by Daley, Tom

  TO KNOW I WAS GOING TO THE OLYMPICS WAS UNBELIEVABLE. I DON’T THINK IT REALLY SANK IN FOR A FEW DAYS. I FELT TOTALLY FLOORED, THAT I WOULD BE FULFILLING SOMETHING I HAD DREAMT ABOUT SO HARD.

  I was hollering, ‘I’m going to the Olympics!’ Dad was crying, obviously.

  I was hugging everyone in the team. Afterwards there was a press conference. Diving in China is like football is in England and they are obsessed with it. Blake and I, two Germans and two Chinese were sat at the front and every single question was directed towards me. I felt quite awkward but answered everyone’s questions the best I could.

  Cameras were flashing, videos cameras were pointing at me, the crowd were cheering wildly. I loved it. Dave Richards, who was dealing with the GB team’s media, Dad and Andy were all simultaneously fielding requests by the media on their phones – it just went mental.

  On my return to the UK, it was just as crazy. I did interviews for the BBC, Radio 1, the Daily Mail and The Times, among others. Everyone was calling me ‘Dynamic Daley’ and ‘Baby Daley’ a ‘pocket-sized phenomenon’. They just asked me about how I was feeling – I could have talked for weeks. My family had a bit of a gathering for me to celebrate and there were journalists knocking at the door and satellite vans outside the house. Mum and Dad were enjoying the attention, too. I wanted to do every interview I was offered because doing so much national press was relatively new.

  After four weeks away I was exhausted but was anxious to catch up with my friends. School was really good. They were still giving me work to go away with and were helping me catch up. My friends were really normal and I slotted back as if I hadn’t been away. It could never go to my head because my family and friends just treated me exactly the same.

  IT KIND OF BYPASSED ME THAT THE MEDIA WERE REPORTING THAT I WAS THE YOUNGEST PERSON TO EVER GO TO THE OLYMPICS.

  I think about it like this – I was young, of course, but I was still diving alongside everyone else. A couple of days later, Kenneth Lester came out saying he was the youngest by a couple of months. I would be 14 years and 81 days at the start of the Games in August, while Lester was aged 13 years and 144 days when he competed in Rome as part of the Great Britain rowing squad in 1960, but his date of birth had been recorded wrongly on the British Olympic Association database. All the media changed their reports but I didn’t mind – all I cared about was that I was going to the Olympics.

  The Sunday Times arranged for Kenneth to come down to Plymouth from his home in Oxfordshire to meet a few days later and he passed on his experience of the Olympics. He told me: ‘Enjoy every minute of it and remember as much as you can.’

  He also said he was reluctant to take the limelight away from me but I didn’t mind. I tried on his blazer with the Union Jack and Rome 1960 stitched on the pocket – it fitted pretty well. He said he was 6st 12lb when he was there and had to put a sandbag in the boat to make up the right weight, I was around seven and a half stone then. I also leafed though the programmes from his event and saw the letters he had written to his parents and brother. It’s weird to think of him not being able to call home or text and email. He told me to keep a diary so I could look back at it, which I did. Later he and his wife, Ros, watched me dive, but because of the jetlag I stuck to the lower boards.

  I was definitely starting to get recognized more and more. I remember walking through town one day with my Aunty Marie and people started asking for photos and autographs. It felt like a real novelty. It was so weird to think that in a few months I would be able to call myself an Olympian.

  In The Public Eye

  ‘I REMEMBER, ON ONE DAY, ALL THESE CAMERAS WERE PRECARIOUSLY POSED ON THE DIFFERENT DIVING BOARDS AT THE MAYFLOWER, ALL TRYING TO GET THE BEST SHOTS OF ME LEAPING FROM THE 10M BOARD. IT WAS SURREAL.’

  In March the GB team travelled to Eindhoven for the European Diving Championships, so I was only back home for a few weeks. Blake and I really wanted another medal – by that point we were ranked second in the world.

  I DIVED WELL BUT BLAKE WASN’T QUITE THERE AND MISSED A COUPLE. WE ENDED UP COMING FIFTH. I WASN’T FRUSTRATED WITH HIM BUT IT WAS ANNOYING BECAUSE I FELT I’D DIVED REALLY WELL, SO THERE WAS NOTHING I COULD DO ABOUT IT.

  But you always take it as a team because that’s the nature of synchro. I didn’t want to go to the mixed zone where the world’s media were waiting, because it felt like everything had gone wrong, but once we got in there it was OK, because we were able to explain what had happened.

  After our event the team manager called the whole diving team together for a meeting. He was angry because he felt the team were not diving to the best of their ability and we weren’t making the finals. There was only my event left and, going into the individual, I wanted to show people what I could do. I was diving against Germany’s Sascha Klein and the World Champion Gleb Galperin, as well as Dmitriy Dobroskok of Russia and Ukraine’s Konstantin Milyaev. It was a pretty tough field so I wasn’t expecting a medal.

  I went into round two placed second after my backward two and a half somersaults, one and a half twists, and kept pace with the leaders with a good forward three and a half piked, but I missed my entry on the inward three and a half with tuck, and a low score of 59.20 saw me slip to sixth with a score of 222. I thought I had just thrown a medal away – but it wasn’t just me who was having a hard time, thankfully. Sascha missed two dives in a row and Gleb was returning from injury, so he was struggling too. My armstand triple somersaults with tuck gave me four 10s from the judges and my fifth dive, a backward three and a half with tuck, got another four 10s! It wasn’t my best dive but I did enough with my reverse three and a half with tuck, to give me a total of 491.95 to win my first senior international title. Sascha took silver with a score of 487.60 and Italy’s Francesco Dell’Uomo took the bronze with 481.30. It was days like those that I had always dreamt about. My performance wasn’t the best but I held it together and in the end it was enough. It feels so hard to explain what it meant to me and how happy I was. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I thought back to the times I said I would never go back onto 10m and felt so relieved I had made it back up there.

  Mum, Dad, my brothers and grandparents were all watching, and as soon as I won Dad was on the phone to the rest of the family. When he called my Uncle Jamie – who we sometimes call Jamie Junglebeans – he said, ‘Tom Daley is European Champion,’ and my uncle thought he was kidding!

  Again the media hype went into overdrive. Some of the people who had not picked up on what happened at the World Cup started to talk about how I could be a medal hope in Beijing. Some days it felt like a constant round of TV and newspaper interviews. I remember, on one day, all these cameras were precariously posed on the different diving boards at the Mayflower, all trying to get the best shots of me leaping from the 10m board. It was surreal. We soon realized that I was spending so much time doing interviews that we needed to pass all handling of the media side to my agent so they could control it better and I still had enough time to train properly, go to school and do my homework. But I loved the interviews; I had never found myself nervous or shy.

  One day, I did a photoshoot at the end of Plymouth Leander Swimming Club’s old diving platform, going into the sea in my Speedos, and it was freezing.

  I WAS QUICKLY REALIZING THAT I SEEMED TO BE MORE RECOGNIZABLE WITHOUT ANY CLOTHES ON. IT DIDN’T BOTHER ME – IT’S WHAT I WAS USED TOO!

  I went back to school as normal. My best friends, Sophie, Nikita, Harriet and Alex, just treated me as they always had done. Nikita was my first girlfriend and we went out for a few weeks when I was thirteen. We held hands and stuff but it fizzled out. We have remained great mates. But other people at school chose to single me out and call me ‘Diver Boy’. It didn’t worry me; I knew what I had achieved and was proud of myself. Then, when some of the older boys started calling me ‘Speedo Boy’, I thought it was an amusing nickname. I let them get on with it and ignored it. Little did I know that there would be worse to come.

 
Three days after my fourteenth birthday I was back competing in Sheffield for the second leg of the FINA World Diving Series. In the synchro Blake and I put in the best performance we had done until then and, after scoring our first perfect 10 of the series, we picked up the first British gold of the series with 429.12 points.

  In the individual event I made it comfortably into the semis and, after only making a couple of mistakes, into the final. I started strongly, scoring 9s for my first dive, but then over-rotated my inward three and a half somersaults and slipped back slightly. Halfway through I was in second place, but in the fourth round Pete did a great back three and a half somersaults, to score all 9s from the judges, and moved up into second place. But I fought my way back into the silver medal position, ripping my back three and a half somersaults. In the end, I took silver with 473.15, just 0.2 points ahead of Pete with China’s Huo Liang in the top spot with 518.4.

  Just a couple of days later, I boarded the plane for Nanjing, for the final round of the FINA Series. Dad and my Granddad Dink were watching. Annoyingly, I lost the silver medal in the individual event after messing up my final dive, my reverse three and a half, and finished fourth with 474.55 with Zhou Luxin winning with a phenomenal score 581.60. That is the only time I have ever dropped that dive to make me fall back down the rankings. The Chinese led the whole event and took eight gold medals across all the competitions. I was a bit frustrated but tried to take something away from the event. Each of the events was just about learning and tweaking as I went along, to try and put in the best performance possible.

  IN MY SPEEDOS POSING ON PLYMOUTH HOE – IT WAS SOOO COLD!

  Around then Leon announced his retirement after taking advice from the doctors about a persistent back injury that he was told was untreatable, so we would not face him and Pete in the dive-off the following month in Manchester, and Blake and I were definitely going to compete at the Olympics together, which made me doubly excited. Leon would still come as a commentator and mentor for the team.

  In June, Mum, Dad and I went to Number 10 Downing Street to meet the Prime Minister at the time, Gordon Brown. It was the launch of the Government initiative whereby the under-16s and over-60s could go swimming in their local pools. I thought it was a great idea as I take being active for granted, but I know some people do not have access to the kind of swimming facilities that I do. I wanted to use my new-found fame to help people. There is no point sitting at home and doing nothing. If you can help someone you do, and if what you do helps just one person, it makes a difference.

  NUMBER 10 FELT LIKE SOME SORT OF TARDIS. FROM THE OUTSIDE, IT LOOKED LIKE A SMALL RECTANGULAR HOUSE, BUT ONCE WE GOT INSIDE THE DOOR, IT BRANCHED INTO FOUR HOUSES – IT WAS HUGE.

  We were taken into a room where there were some media and people were handing out orange juice and croissants. Gordon Brown came over and we chatted about the Olympics and my training. I didn’t feel uncomfortable because he was really normal, and told my parents they had done a good job with me, which they were pleased about.

  Six days later I was back in London to launch the GB kit for the Olympics. Each year they do a PR stunt to show the public how the kit looks for that year. Some of the other athletes, like Victoria Pendleton, Chris Tomlinson, Liz Fell and I wore various bits of kit and stood in the window of the Adidas shop on Oxford Street. I didn’t wear my Speedos because they thought it might be a bit inappropriate, so I just wore a tracksuit. Dad came and took photos. We were like mannequins behind the glass and had to try to stay really still, and we got some pretty strange looks from members of the public.

  But the next day I saw even more media as I attended a press day in Plymouth. It was a full and intense day of interviews and there were camera crews from all over the world, including Japan and America. Everyone wanted to know about my plans for the next few months and what I was aiming for.

  Then, after a busy few days working, I really enjoyed celebrating my Dad’s birthday. We had a big party at my Grandma Rose’s house with a marquee. It was nice to have a break from all the intense media attention and enjoy spending some time with my family.

  I didn’t get much of a rest, though, as about a week later I travelled up north with the rest of the team to a training camp in Leeds and then the Olympic qualifiers. I had three days of training with Blake, working on our list. It was good to get some consistent training together with only a month until we took part in the biggest competition in the world. I was starting to enjoy being away with everyone more and more and the diving team was becoming my family away from my family. We always try and make our time away from home as much fun as possible.

  THE DAY BEFORE THE SYNCHRO COMPETITION, BLAKE FELL OFF HIS MOTORBIKE AND HURT HIS ARM, SO WE WERE NOT ABLE TO COMPETE TOGETHER, BUT IN MY INDIVIDUAL I BROKE THROUGH THE 500-POINT BARRIER FOR THE FIRST TIME WITH 512 POINTS.

  Me and my brothers. Messing around with special effects definitely had a ‘special effect’ on Ben …

  Although my place had already been confirmed, the team was named and there was an increasing sense of excitement about Beijing. I still could not believe I was going, but to finally know that my hard work had paid off felt amazing and I was determined to enjoy every second of my Olympic experience. The other names confirmed as part of the GB Diving Team were Tonia, Pete, Blake, Ben Swain and Nick Robinson-Baker, Hayley Sage, Tandi Gerrard, Stacie Powell and Rebecca Gallantree.

  I went on holiday with my family to Alcudia in Majorca for a week of relaxation, just being a normal family, playing together in the pool and on the beach and going out for dinner in the evenings. Mum and Dad always tried to give us all a break, despite the financial pressure. I loved the time we had just as a family but when we came back I was hungrier than ever for the Olympics. A week without diving made me realize how much it means to me and I still feel the same when I go away now.

  In the run-up to Beijing, I was training six or seven times a week for about three or four hours at a time. Everything was focused towards the event and perfecting my list. I didn’t think about the pressure. It was just about going to have the experience. I still potentially had four Olympics so wanted to learn as much from it as I could. As well as dry board and diving sessions, I had massage once a week to loosen up my muscles. It’s not a soft tissue massage; it’s really deep so they go at you with their elbows, which can be quite painful but it definitely helps the next day. I also had physio once a week to stretch me out or if I needed extra specific work on an area. Some days Dad would take me to the pool, sometimes three to four times a day. On a Friday, for example, I would get to school for 8.30 a.m. for one lesson, then go training in the pool, then go back to school for another lesson, then go back to the pool for a massage, then school, then home for some food and to do my homework and then get back to the pool by 5.30 p.m. for three hours’ more training.

  IT WAS ABOUT THAT TIME THAT I STARTED TO BE DRUGS TESTED AND TWO PEOPLE WOULD JUST TURN UP AT THE DOOR WITH NO WARNING AND I WOULD HAVE TO PEE INTO A CUP. IT WAS SLIGHTLY ODD THE FIRST FEW TIMES – THEY ALSO WATCH! – BUT NOW I’M USED TO IT.

  July got off to a good start when I travelled up to the NEC in Birmingham to pick up my GB Olympics kit. There were personal shoppers everywhere and we got measured up and could take anything we wanted. Tonia and I were together and we were running round, trying loads of things on. I picked up some T-shirts, shorts and, of course, my trunks. Each of us had to get a formal suit, parade wear, a pillow and a Panasonic camcorder. It really started to sink in that I was actually going and there were so many people there that it made me feel like I was part of a bigger team.

  The following week, Tonia and I had a really busy week. We were going round schools in the town, talking in assemblies to advertise free diving lessons to encourage more people to try the sport. All the children put their hands up for leaflets and said they wanted to start diving, which was good. We did two assemblies a day for five days and had training and schoolwork on top of that. I also had lunch with Sir Steve Redgrave.
Steve watched me training from the spectator gallery at Central Park pool and it felt quite weird that he was there. Each time the receptionists see TV cameras, they get the signing-in book ready, hoping that it might be someone famous. Over lunch at a restaurant on Plymouth Hoe, Steve and I chatted about the Olympics and what to expect. Each time I saw him, I always asked him about dealing with nerves and he encouraged me to stay focused and keep working hard.

  That week I had another exciting day for a different reason – I had my braces taken off! Initially I had a removable brace and then train tracks for about eighteen months. At first, I thought they were cool but about two days later I wanted to get them off again! I got food stuck in them, and they hurt, so I was determined have them taken off before the Olympics. The following day I went to Frankie and Benny’s with my friends as a bit of a send-off for me going to Beijing. We also had the family over and it gave me a chance to say goodbye to everyone.

  The following week, I was with the British Diving Team at a training camp in Sheffield. We had lunch and a talk from Steve Foley. He said lots of thank yous to everyone and it was a big morale booster for the team. In the evening we went bowling and played athletes versus the coaches. We won the first game but the coaches beat us in the second. It was really nice to spend some time with the other divers, especially Tonia and Ben. The next day we went for a really posh meal to mark us going to the Olympics.

  I DIDN’T HAVE THE RIGHT CLOTHES. I ONLY HAD A T-SHIRT, JEANS AND TRAINERS AND £20 IN MY POCKET. BUT TONIA CONSIDERED IT A CHALLENGE AND TOOK ME TO PRIMARK, WHERE I GOT SMART SHOES, SHIRT AND TROUSERS FOR UNDER £20. WE WERE LIKE BOOM – DONE!