Tom Daley

At seven years old Tom Daley had never taken a proper dive into a swimming pool. At nine years of age he was to be found crying and screaming, too scared to attempt a backwards dive. Four years’ later and the prodigy from Plymouth was bound for Beijing last summer where he did not disappoint at the Olympic Games.
The young teenager’s extraordinary rise to prominence has gathered a tremendous pace ever since he won the BBC TV’s Young Sports Personality of the Year” award in 2007. By the time of the Olympics he had become a household name, and has remained one ever since.

“I’m enjoying it,” he announces, as he bounces up and down on his bed upstairs at home in the Plymouth suburb of Eggbuckland in a room he shares with his 9-year-old brother Ben. “When I arrived back at Heathrow airport after the Games everyone was really nice to me, and I even got recognised in the Plymouth McDonalds when I went in for a McFlurry.”

Let us hope McFlurrys are not added to the International Olympic Committee’s banned list of substances, otherwise young Mr Daley would stand no chance. It is, so it turns out, his only vice in an otherwise dedicated lifestyle that a professional athlete – even a 14-year-old who weights just 49 kilos and is 1m 58 cms tall – has to lead.

Listening to Tom’s description of his week leaves you exhausted. “On Mondays and Fridays I’m up at 6.15 in the morning,” he explains. “I grab some breakfast – usually a bowl of cereal, some fruit, maybe some beans on toast – and then go to Central Park pool to train for one and a quarter hours. Then it’s off to school, back home by 3.30, do my homework, have tea – which is something like spag bol or chicken with veg or rice, followed by three hour training session every night. I have a light snack before going to bed, like a piece of toast. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays I only have the three hour evening session, which means I try and get up as late as possible in the mornings. I take Saturdays completely off and then have a three hour morning training session on Sundays before having Sunday lunch at my Grandma’s.”

Now that, in anyone’s language, is a hectic and tiring schedule for an adult, let alone a small boy. “Well, I do get tired sometimes,” he admits. “Especially when the training steps up before a competition, or if I’m suffering from jetlag. Sometimes a training session doesn’t go so well because I’m tired and I get stressed, but I’m usually fine the next day after a good night’s sleep.”

It is unusual to hear a boy of such an age talk about the problems of jetlag like an international businessman, but Tom seems to take it in his stride. “In the last couple of years I’ve been to Australia three times, Canada twice, Texas, Spain, France, Thailand, Dubai, Mexico and, of course, Beijing.I just set my watch to whatever time zone I’m flying to, and sleep that night.”

Does he get homesick with all this time away from home? “I used to,” he admits. “My Dad comes with me, but often stays just for the competition. In Beijing, for example, I was out there for nearly a month and he came for a week. I used to miss my family, my two brothers, even if we do argue a lot, and my home comforts, but now I love seeing new countries and travelling with the British team. I can never wait for the next trip.”

What about his school work? Does that suffer? “There’s a British diver on the team called Tandi Gerrard. She’s a teacher in England and whenever I’ve been away competing she’s been teaching me, although I think I’m going to get a full-time tutor to help as I’m going to be away a lot over the next few years during my GCSE’s and “A” Levels. As for the school they’re all very supportive. My friends are always wishing me good luck, and they understand why I can’t often go out with them because I’m training.”

Not everyone is as supportive, though. “Well, you get a few older boys who refer to me as “Diver Boy,” which is fine, and one or two take the mickey, but I’m very lucky because I’ve found a talent I have and I’m going to the Olympics and, hopefully, many more Olympics too. I’m not sure what they’ll end up doing.”

Quite! The sacrifices, clearly, are well worth it. “Yes they have, especially as I’ve been to the Olympics. It will get harder as I get older because I’ll miss out on a few parties. I can’t turn up to training still drunk, can I?”

Not when the training is as hard as it sounds. According to Tom he divides up training equally between dry land and the pool. “By dry land I mean doing weights, trampolining, using harnesses, gymnastics, somersaults, squats, leg and shoulder strengthening exercises to get power off the diving platform and plenty of stretching. In the summer I’ll go for a few runs, but only two or three times round Central Park. You need more power as a diver than stamina. The fast twitch muscles need to be able to make quick adjustments whilst diving.”

Ordinarily it is not the healthiest thing to be lifting weights when at such a physically vulnerable age but Tom, as always, has it all worked out. “In one sense I have an advantage because I’m small right now, which means I can spin my body quickly in a dive and I’m more compact. You don’t want to become a really tall diver because that makes it harder to hit the water smoothly, as well as perform the various spins, twists and somersaults during a dive.

“But I do need to be stronger. I’m not fully grown and I can’t perform the hardest dives yet. This is why, although I’m really hopeful for the London 2012 Games, and the Olympics after that, I’m not going to win a gold in Beijing because while I’m producing a three and a half somersault pike dive my fellow competitors are performing four and half somersault pikes. I never lift heavy weights, but just enough to aid my development.”

Tom’s other impressive attribute is his mental strength. Despite cracking his head open twice from dives – and his forehead sports a scar from one of these accidents, the youngster has become fearless. “It goes back to four years’ ago when I stood on the platform crying my eyes out because I didn’t want to perform a backward dive for the first time. When I finally plucked up enough courage to do it, I never looked back. Now, whenever I’m a little scared of a new dive, I think back to then and remind myself I got over it four years ago, so I can get over it now.”

He puts his strong mentality to good use when competing, as well. “I never look at the scoreboard,” he reveals. “That way I don’t add pressure if I need to produce a fantastic dive, nor complacency if an average dive will still win the competition. Instead I stay focussed, visualise the dive I’m about to produce, and tell myself that this dive is a dive I’ve done so many times in training so it shouldn’t be a problem now. It’s about backing yourself. You can’t worry about what the others are going to do. You’ve just got to go out and do what you need to do.”

Even his father’s brain tumour which, hopefully, is now long gone, did not faze young Tom. “I didn’t know about it until Dad was operated on but it just made me train even harder because I was so motivated. Now I’m doing it for Dad, as well.”

All in all Tom Daley is a remarkable young man who, in his approach to his life, is way beyond his age. Ask him for a tip to anyone who wants to follow in his footsteps and he sounds like a venerable sage: “Work hard and success will follow.”
Spoken like a wise old man.