The Olympic diving champion Tom Daley has said he will return to the pool to target a spot at Paris 2024.
Daley, now 29, won Olympic gold alongside Matty Lee in the men’s 10-metre synchronised competition at the Tokyo Games in 2020, his fourth Olympics. The three-time world champion has taken two years out since then, saying he had “in theory retired”, but in a new YouTube video he said a recent trip to Colorado Springs in the US had reignited his competitive spirit with a year to go until Paris.
Daley and his husband, Dustin Lance Black, travelled to Colorado for the birth of their second son, Phoenix, in March, and Daley said he had not realised its status as an Olympic city – it is home to the US Olympic and Paralympic training centre – until they arrived. He took his eldest son, Robbie, to the museum there and said he felt inspired to attempt a return.
“Robbie said to me: ‘Papa, I want to see you dive in the Olympics’,” Daley said in a video post. “It has lit a new flame in me to see where this goes. I don’t know where this is going to go, I don’t know if this is going to be a completely silly idea of me getting back in the pool or an opportunity for me to do this recreationally and have a bit of fun without any pressure, or if my body is going to be able to get back on a diving board and dive half-decently.
“I don’t know what that’s going to look like. Paris 2024 is definitely a goal. I don’t know if it’s going to be possible but you never say never.”
He decided not to compete at the Commonwealth Games last year in order to spend more time with his husband and first son, who was born in 2018 via a surrogate.
Daley started diving at the age of seven and made his Olympic debut for Great Britain when he was 14. He came out as gay in a YouTube video in 2013 and has since become an outspoken advocate of LGBTQ+ rights.
His film Tom Daley: Illegal to Be Me, which was shown on the BBC last August, highlighted homophobia in sport and the discrimination and danger faced by LGBT+ athletes in some Commonwealth countries. “LGBT+ athletes must be safe and feel comfortable being their authentic selves without fear of persecution or death,” he said at the time.
He took up knitting and crochet during the pandemic, and has now attracted 1.2 million followers to his Instagram account @madewithlovebytomdaley, where he posts photos of his creations. In a Guardian interview, he said: “Like most things in my life I’ve become very committed to it.”
PA Media contributed to this report
