For Tom Daley, a silver on Monday was more like a bonus for his fifth Olympic Games in Paris. But the 30-year-old diving star, who thought he should have retired after the Tokyo Games, didn’t rule out a next one.
Daley, 30, has been Britain’s diving icon for quite a long time. At the age of 15, he stunned the world by triumphing in the 10m platform at the 2009 World Championships in Rome and kept along with many medal winning moments in major events in his starlit career.
Due to injury and fatigue, Daley considered retirement in 2018. But the birth of his son Robbie changed his perspective. “Diving is all the more important now because I have someone I want to make proud,” Daley once said at that time.
When Chen Aisen and Cao Yuan from the Chinese diving dream team stumbled at the Tokyo Games, Daley and his partner Matty Lee held their nerves to take the chance.
Daley thought he was ready to say farewell to his diving career after this achievement and he did take a break for two years until he visited an Olympic and Paralympic Museum in Colorado Springs with his family in 2023.
“At the end we watched this inspirational video of all these amazing moments of the Olympics and what it means to be an athlete and the inspirational journey to get there,” Daley recalled.
“I sat there with Robbie and I just wept. It was like I hadn’t grieved diving. In theory I had retired but coming out of that museum something changed in me where I don’t think I was ready to be done, especially when my son said to me, ‘Papa, I want to see you dive at the Olympics’.”
Daley resumed training but didn’t want to believe that he was going to be in the fifth Olympics until he and new partner Noah Williams completed all of their training dives.
“Because even all the way through this, I know that at any moment you can get injured and not be able to compete,” said Daley. “I knew that I got to the start line in one piece and be able to do that with Noah has been really special.”
It’s even more special as Daley’s two sons as well as many family members and friends were watching from the stands.
“Before we even started the competition, I felt like I had achieved what I wanted,” said Daley. “To be able to dive in front of my kids and my family that was just something really special and an experience that I will never forget.”
Daley still has a clear memory of his first Olympic Games in Beijing as a 14-year-old. “I had no idea what the scale of the Olympics was and how different it would feel to every other competition.”
“I actually remember meeting Nadal and also Andy Murray for the first time which was kind of very surreal and to think that we’re all still going at this point,” he recalled.
Diving for one more Olympic Games? Daley’s first reaction was “I don’t know”.
“I want to spend some time with the family and measure up everything and see what it might take,” said Daley who is based in Los Angeles.
He admitted it would be a challenge for him and Williams training together “because we live an eight hour’s time difference and an 11-hour flight away from each other.”
“I’ve never ruled that out. But for right now, I just want to enjoy this,” he said. ■
