Paris
CNN
—
Days before taking part in the Paris Olympics, Tom Daley already felt like he had won a gold medal, such was his joy at having his kids at the competition with him.
On Monday, the British diver got his hands on an actual medal, too, winning silver alongside partner Noah Williams in the men’s synchronized 10-meter platform. That marked the fourth medal of Daley’s long Olympic career, dating all the way back to the Beijing Games in 2008 when he competed as a fresh-faced 14-year-old.
“It’s the happiest I’ve been in diving in all these years because diving wasn’t necessarily my top priority,” he told reporters. “Of course, it is extremely important, but there is nothing more important than my children and being able to spend time with them.”
Daley and Williams, who only started diving together in June last year, produced an excellent performance to score 463.44 at Paris’ Aquatics Center to finish behind a near-flawless display from the Chinese duo of Lian Junjie and Yang Hao. Canada’s Rylan Wiens and Nathan Zsombor-Murray, meanwhile, won a tight battle over Mexico and Ukraine for third.
The silver medal adds to the gold and two bronzes that Daley already owns, but the 30-year-old has many titles besides Olympic medal winner. He’s a dad, a father and a voice for the LGBTQ+ community, drying himself with a rainbow-striped towel at the side of the pool in Paris.
In recent years, he’s added knitting aficionado to that list, with an Instagram page showcasing his creations boasting 1.2 million followers.
It looked like Daley’s diving days would be behind him when he stepped away from the sport after the Tokyo Olympics, and just 15 months ago, he was enjoying his new life in Los Angeles with his husband, Oscar-winning writer Dustin Lance Black, and their two children, Robbie and Phoenix.
An injury to Matty Lee, Daley’s gold medal partner in Tokyo, created the opportunity to partner with Williams, but even then their training time was limited, with Daley living in LA and Williams in London.
“We only ever trained at the competitions,” Daley explained. “So we would turn up and wing it together and compete.”
Aside from that, Daley would train at UCLA while balancing child care and time with his family. The unusual approach proved successful in Paris as the duo produced their biggest individual score at an international event, headlined by high scores on their fourth and sixth dives.
“I feel like that might be our strength, that we don’t need to do as much synchro together,” said Daley. “I think that our tactic this time was maybe to focus more on the individual dives because, with the good individual dives, you get the good execution.
“I think our fourth dive today was the best in terms of timing and synchronization. That was one that we’ve been working on a lot.”
The silver medal capped off a memorable few days for Daley in the French capital having also been chosen as one of Great Britain’s flag bearers at the opening ceremony, alongside rower Helen Glover.
The question now, having been the youngest and oldest member of the British Olympic diving team, is whether Daley will extend his career by another four years, and the 2028 Games, of course, will be held on his doorstep in LA.
But Daley wants that to be a consideration for another day. “Right now, I’m going to enjoy this moment,” he said. “We’ll see how it goes on.”
