The journey from Los Angeles to London for the pre-Olympic Games Paris 2024 training camp was unlike any of diver and British sporting icon Tom Daley’s previous four Olympic experiences.
The British public has watched Daley grow from a 14-year-old emerging on the 10m platform at the Beijing 2008 Olympics. He won an individual bronze medal in front of a home crowd at the London 2012 Olympics, just a year after losing his father to brain cancer.
In Rio 2016, Daley secured a synchro bronze with Dan Goodfellow, and in Tokyo 2020, he finally achieved his long-awaited gold medal, paired with Matty Lee in the synchro event. He also claimed a largely overlooked but impressive bronze in the individual event in Japan, bringing his total to four Olympic medals by the age of 30.
This time, traveling to the Olympics, Daley, despite his iconic status, experienced the journey like any other parent flying with their children.
“I was worried about how it was going to go,” Daley admitted with a smile to journalists on 17 July, just 12 days before competing in his fifth Olympic Games. “Luckily, it was a night flight, so Robbie, who travels all the time, was fine because he’s six now and a bit more like an adult. Phoenix, however, being the second child, was more wriggly and eager to climb and jump on everything. He was quiet, but I had to keep wrangling him the whole time.”
Daley, whose Olympic journey will conclude on 29 July when he competes in his sole event—the men’s synchronized 10m platform—alongside Noah Williams (as Matty Lee is absent due to injury), is in good spirits.
This year, Daley and Williams have achieved silver at the 2024 World Championships in Doha, and have won gold, silver, and bronze at various World Cup series events.
Social media posts show Daley training at an outdoor pool in Los Angeles, near where he lives with his husband Dustin Lance Black and their two children. Despite this, he frequently travels back to London and the Aquatics Centre from the 2012 Olympic Games, where Team GB trains.
With so much already written about him, we wanted Daley to speak for himself. Here’s a Q&A from the interview, lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
