Name: Tom Daley
Country: Great Britain
Sport: Diving, 10m synchro
Previous Olympic experience: Beijing 2008, London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2021
Social Media: Instagram / X / TikTok
Who is Tom Daley?
“Tom Daley says he’s dating a guy and ‘everything just feels great’” — that was the headline on Outsports in December 2013.
Daley was then 19 and already a diving sensation — a world, European and Commonwealth champion, and an Olympic medalist.
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But life had not been a teenage dream. Fame was accompanied by homophobic bullying at school. Tragically, Daley lost his dad to brain cancer in 2011. After winning bronze at London 2012, he felt lost and even considered ending his competitive career.
However, falling in love with Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black changed his life. After a newspaper quoted him as saying he wasn’t gay, he posted a YouTube coming-out video to explain how he didn’t feel ready to label himself. To date, it has had over 13m views.
Soon, he and Black had gone public about their relationship and by April 2014, Daley was confidently identifying as gay.
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Since then, he’s won three more world titles and three more Olympic medals — the most precious being 10m synchro gold at Tokyo alongside Matty Lee.
After that triumph, he told the media: “I feel incredibly proud to say that I’m a gay man and also an Olympic champion. When I was younger, I didn’t think I’d ever achieve anything because of who I was.”
Away from the pool, Daley married Black in 2017 and they have two sons together, Robbie and Phoenix.
He’s excelled as an advocate and was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2022 New Year Honours, for “services to diving, LGBTQ+ rights and charity.”
@tomdaley POV: your kid is better at your job than you…
♬ Party All The Time – Hannah Laing & HVRR
Tom Daley at the Paris Summer Olympics
This time last year, Daley was enjoying an ‘unofficial’ retirement and wasn’t in any hurry to return to competitive diving.
However, a family visit to the Olympic and Paralympic Museum in Colorado Springs changed his mind. “Robbie said, ‘Papa, I want to see you dive at the Olympics’ — that has lit a new flame and fire inside me to see where this goes,” he revealed.
Daley resumed training in Los Angeles, having relocated there from London with Black and their boys, and by December, he was back in competitive action. Lee’s ongoing injury problems meant he was assigned a new 10m synchro partner in Noah Williams.
The duo clicked immediately and in February, they sealed a quota spot for Team GB with a silver-medal success at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha.
Daley, who turned 30 last month, won’t be competing individually at what is his fifth Olympic Games. “My body, touch wood, has held out pretty well coming back and just doing synchro,” he recently told the Team GB website.
Unlike in Tokyo where restrictions were in place, he’ll have strong support inside the Paris Aquatics Centre. Robbie could be the loudest cheerleader of all.
“He tries to tell me how to dive, which is quite funny — but he’s only five, so he thinks he knows best! He loves it, and he’s super excited.”
And in one further difference to three years ago, Daley is set to carry a rainbow shammy towel. He’s truly the Pride of the LGBTQ community in Olympic sports.
