MICHAEL JOSEPH
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PENGUIN BOOKS
MICHAEL JOSEPH
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First published 2012
Text copyright © Tom Daley, 2012
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Photography © Andy Hooper
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-1-40-590950-1
PROLOGUE
DIVING IN
MASTERING THE BASICS
GOING INTERNATIONAL
CLIMBING HIGHER AND HIGHER
LEARNING TO FACE MY FEARS
QUALIFYING FOR BEIJING
IN THE PUBLIC EYE
THE 2008 OLYMPICS
FLYING THE GB FLAG
COMING HOME
A DIFFERENT KIND OF CHALLENGE
BEING CROWNED WORLD CHAMP
SETBACKS AND TRIUMPHS
THE CANCER BATTLE
LOSING DAD
LOOKING TO 2012
EPILOGUE
Born in 1994, Tom Daley started diving at the age of seven. Specializing in the 10-metre platform event, he became the youngest British athlete in any sport to come first in the FINA World Championships. He represented Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Olympics, where he was Britain’s youngest competitor. Tom won two gold medals for England at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in the 10-metre synchro diving and the 10-metre individual platform competition. In 2007, 2009 and 2010, he was named BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year. Tom lives with his family in Plymouth and is currently training for the 2012 London Olympics.
‘Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes.’
J. M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan
Standing on top of the 10m board I have butterflies and feel a rush of adrenalin. No matter how many times I’ve dived from this platform, it scares me. It’s like taking a leap into the unknown because every dive is different.
The 10m platform at the pool in Plymouth where I train every day is considered one of the hardest boards to dive off in the world. The domed, concrete ceiling is low, so it feels like it is caving in on you, and the board is almost half the size of ordinary 10m platforms and wobbles when you stand on it.
Looking out, I can see miniature people doing front crawl up and down the regular pool, women bobbing up and down at aqua-aerobics or mothers making their way to a baby session with their youngsters in tow. A dozen sunken hair-bands sit lifeless on the bottom of the pool beneath me, along with a white, human-sized dummy, for the life-saving classes. I am immune to the sweet and sticky smell of chlorine; to me, the pool smells as familiar as home.
There are always echoing noises – children laughing, music playing and people talking, but when I stand up there, I am in my own bubble of silence. There is so much space around me it’s almost like I am standing on a concrete block that is suspended in mid-air.
By the time I have reached the top, via a chain of worn wooden ladders, I have already visualized the dive in my head a number of times. I go through every movement in my mind and the way my body will coil, tuck, whirl and twist, like elastic. I don’t think about the landing, I concentrate on the process. I am totally focused. I dry myself with my soft chamois cloth so my hands do not slip when I bend into a tuck or pike position. It’s also very, very hot and clammy and moisture starts to seep back into your skin so you have to wipe it away. Before I start a training session or competition, I also rub Palmolive soap on my arms and legs because it helps me grip. If you slip out of a dive, it’s a disaster.
I try to breathe slowly and steadily and not think too hard about what I’m about to do. If you think too much the demons start crawling into your head and you imagine all the things that could go wrong: What if I land badly? What if I lose myself in the air? What if I miss my hands? I have to focus on each step at a time.
The hardest dive on my list is the front four and a half somersaults with tuck – sometimes called ‘The Big Front’ – and it is so technically and physically challenging that people in the sport once thought it was impossible. But with a difficulty rating of 3.7, it will be key to me doing well at the Olympics. It’s a make-or-break dive: do it well and the competition could be yours, perform it badly and you may end up throwing a medal away.
I think about 2012 every day, and often I look at the clock when it says 20.12 – it feels symbolic in some way. Recently I was filming an advert and it was on the twelfth take that it was perfect. It’s really freaky. Every day when I train, I wonder what it will be like, standing on the top board at the London Aquatics Centre. It’s good to imagine how it will be because it puts added pressure on me and gets the adrenalin pumping around my body.
For ‘The Big Front’, I take a run-up from the back of the board. I make sure my shoulders are relaxed, so I don’t look anxious, but every other muscle is tense and feels solid and strong. I count myself in, to urge myself to run, saying aloud, ‘One, two, three…’, take a deep breath and go. I run on my toes – it’s almost like a hop, skip and a jump – four steps to give me power and momentum as I take off and launch myself into the air.
Immediately I snap into a tuck, clutching my knees to my chest. I don’t know how I do it, it’s like my brain just knows. There are memory patterns in the brain called ‘schemas’ – these are the movement patterns that are ingrained into your mind through hours and hours of repetitive practice on dry land and in the pool. I get into the correct shape at the right time and make decisions in split seconds. It’s like I have an internal compass – I know where my body is at any time when I am in the air, which direction it needs to go or if I need to slow my rotation or speed it up. A tiny movement can make a dive, or completely ruin it.
As I spin round, it feels like I am going in slow motion and on some occasions, it even feels like I have lots of time. I have to use my eyes. If I close them I could land flat on the water. The force is so hard, it’s like a car crash. You bruise immediately, and can split skin open or cough up blood.
I have to see every single detail – or ‘spot’ – even though I am falling at up to 34 miles per hour. You get used to feeling queasy, like you’re whirling on a rollercoaster. I look for the pool water, which is a snatch of bright blue. I count it five times so quickly I don’t even register that I am doing it and at the very last millisecond, at the height of the 3m board, I stretch out as far and as sharply and as hard as I can, reaching for the water with my strongest hand – my left hand first, then clasp my right hand on top. Every muscle from my hands, through my arms, torso and legs to my pointed toes is squeezed tight so when I punch the water it does not hurt. It helps that I have big hands, which give me a larger surface area on entry, lessening the crashing impact. It takes 1.9 seconds from takeoff and, after dropping the height of two double decker buses, I hit the water at over 34 miles per hour.
I can tell if I’ve done a good dive because as I strike the water and split my hands apart it creates a vacuum, so I immediately get sucked under – in a ‘rip’ entry – and water pulls me down, perfectly straight, like an arrow. The immediate feeling is a sense of relief that I haven’t hurt myself. If I’m at a competition and I’ve done a good dive, I race as fast as I can towards the surface of the water through the muffled cheers and whistles. I can’t wait to see the electronic board with the name ‘Thomas Daley’ in shiny neon letters, next to a row of high scores, and to look up to see my family cheering and the GB team on their feet, clapping and hollering words of encouragement.
I strive every time for a complete set of perfect 10s. When the points are high or I know I’ve won a medal, I feel I have so much energy I could leap out of the water like a dolphin.
As I climb out of the water, picking up my chamois cloth on the way, I always think about Dad. He was at almost every training session and competition that I did, until he died in May 2011, and every time I train I expect to see him sitting by the poolside, grinning and cracking jokes, making everyone around him laugh.
HE WAS NOT ONLY MY DAD; HE WAS MY BEST FRIEND, SOUNDING BOARD, TAXI DRIVER AND BIGGEST CHAMPION. WHEN I JUMP FROM THE BOARD AT LONDON 2012, IT WILL BE FOR HIM.
‘I LOVE THE FEELING OF WEIGHTLESSNESS. I ALWAYS LOVE BEING IN THE WATER AND TO COMBINE JUMPING OFF THE SIDE INTO THE WATER FEELS LIKE A DIFFERENT AND FUN WAY TO BE ABLE TO SWIM. I FEEL FREE, LIKE I COULD DO ANYTHING.’
Just moments after I was born, the midwife dunked me in a bath of water and I made this funny ‘oooooohhhh’ noise through pursed lips.
‘THIS ONE’S A WATER BABY,’ SHE EXCLAIMED. ‘AND LOOK AT HIS BIG HANDS!’ LITTLE DID SHE KNOW THAT THOSE TWO ATTRIBUTES WOULD HELP DEFINE MY LIFE SO FAR.
It was 21 May 1994 and I was one of the first babies to make an entrance at the newly opened maternity ward at Derriford hospital in Plymouth. I was my mum and dad’s first baby and they were young parents aged twenty-three and twenty-four.
I was an easy-going and bright baby with a keen sense of adventure. My first December I gave everyone a scare when I crawled at top speed over to the newly decorated Christmas tree and pulled it over on top of myself. Like most babies, I never wanted to go to sleep – and everyone used to sing Pato Banton’s ‘Baby Come Back’ to me, which apparently had the desired effect of making me drop off into a deep slumber.
I loved drawing, jigsaws and colouring in and was a total perfectionist – if it wasn’t just how I wanted it, I would cry. I started talking very early, was walking at ten months and by eighteen months I could write my own name. I was obsessed with Big Bird from Sesame Street and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – or ‘dig digs’ as I called them, after the song.
When I was two, my brother William was born and I loved him instantly. I was very affectionate and not long after he was brought home from hospital, I climbed into his carrycot to give him a cuddle – not realizing that I almost squashed and suffocated him. Sorry, Will!
Both my parents, Debbie and Rob, were born and grew up in Plymouth. They had been together since they were fifteen and got married when they were both twenty-one. I am surrounded by family: my dad’s parents Grandma Rose and Granddad Dave, who we call Granddad Dink, and my Aunty Marie, Dad’s sister, who was fifteen when I was born, used to live a few doors up on the road where we lived in Derriford. As soon as I could walk I sometimes let myself out the garden gate and toddled up to their house, sending my mum into a panic, until she realized where I was.
Mum’s parents Grandma Jenny and Granddad Doug, Dad’s brother Uncle Jamie, and his wife Aunty Debbie and my Aunty Marie, who is now married to Uncle Jason, and loads of cousins are also in Plymouth. There are always people popping in and out of the house. My mum’s two brothers – Kevin and Brian – and their families live in London.
The Daley Gang …
Fun in the water with Dad.
Me striking a pose, Will looking cute for once and Ben looking starstruck.
I come from a family of hard workers; both Mum and Dad left school at sixteen and went straight into jobs, Dad worked for a company that built special-purpose machinery, a business that he would later run, while Mum worked as a receptionist and later for Toshiba. Granddad Dink was a toolmaker and Granddad Doug a builder.
Plymouth is a large seaside city on the south-west coast. The city centre is fairly modern, having been rebuilt from the 1940s after being bombed out in the war. It’s the place to be in the summer! It is a great place to grow up, with Dartmoor on one side, Cornwall on the other and the Hoe just a few miles away; much of my early childhood was spent outdoors. We often went camping and as a toddler I loved feeding the ducks at Tavistock Park and going on long walks.
When I was three, my favourite meals were chicken nuggets and spaghetti on toast but my love affair with food reached new heights when I got into baking with my Aunty Marie. We loved making cupcakes together, mixing the batter and licking the spoons, before decorating the new batch with icing and sweets.
Mum and Dad were keen for me to be able to handle myself in the water because we lived by the sea, so I started swimming regularly at the pool at Fort Stamford, near my Grandma Rose and Granddad Dink’s house, when I was a toddler. As soon as I was confident in the water, I went on a week-long intensive course for half an hour a day and picked up my five-metre certificate.
When I was three, we moved to the house I live in now in Eggbuckland, perched on the top of a hill with amazing, panoramic views over the local area, which is made up of mostly post-war, cream-coloured homes. Plymouth is milder and wetter than the rest of the country, so it is often grey and raining. Seagulls provide the constant background soundtrack.
Ten days before my fifth birthday my youngest brother, Ben, was born. I was equally besotted with him and we shared a room until I was almost sixteen, when we had an extension above the kitchen built so I could have my own space and Ben wasn’t disturbed when I came home late from training.
On my first day at my local primary school, St Edward’s, there were no tears – I enjoyed every second. I did normal schoolwork and enjoyed sports like judo, squash and tennis. I was also terrible at lots of other sports; Mum took me to football lessons and I was awful. I could not catch a ball either, and when I tried to kick it, it would just go in the opposite direction.
‘THE ULTIMATE HIGHLIGHT WAS OUR ELECTRIC CAR, WHICH WE USED TO DRIVE AROUND THE SITE.’
Trophy time – my favourite throw was a ‘Tomoe nage’ because it had my name in it.
I was also a fan of a soft-play area called Jump nearby, where I clambered into ballpits, threw myself down slides and crawled up huge climbing frames. I was naturally athletic and during one wedding that all the family was at I shocked the other guests when I walked from one side of the dancefloor to the other on my hands.
We were definitely a household of boys; Granddad Dink had a speedboat and Dad had a jet-ski which we used to ride on and I loved the exhilarating feeling of speeding along in the water as the salt spray blew around us. Our days out fell into a familiar routine with Mum organizing us all with spare clothes, any kit we needed, food and drink and making sure we made it on time, while Dad packed the car with all the ‘fun’ stuff. He was always joking and mostly acted like a big kid, while Mum battled to keep us all in line!
In our summer holidays before I started diving, we would go to the South of France with our family in a trailer tent, sometimes for three weeks at a time. Mum, Dad, William, Ben and I and my Uncle Steve and Aunty Kerry – Steve is Dad’s cousin – and their two children, Joe and Sam, would take the ferry from Plymouth across the Channel to Roscoff and motor down through France to stay on a caravan site. I remember being outdoors from morning until we went to bed, learning to ride a bike there, playing endless games of rounders, splashing about in the pool and Sam over-stretching our Stretch Armstrong gel-filled toy and all the green goo coming out. The ultimate highlight was our electric car, which we used to drive around the site. Sam and I were the eldest, so we were in the front, with one of us steering and one accelerating, and William and Joe would sit in the back. We used to think we were so cool – but it only went at 4 mph!
One day when I was seven we decided to go for a family day out at the Central Park Pool, which is about ten minutes from our house. They were putting on a fun session with giant, colourful inflatables, where you can go down slides and hang off mats.
As I ran out of the changing room, in front of me was the main pool, which was so big it felt like a giant arena. I was bowled over.
Music was playing in the background and people were laughing and talking by the poolside. It felt so exciting.
Next to the main area was a diving pool. People were jumping off the high 5m and 7m platforms and the 3m and 1m springboards.
BUT IT WAS THE 10M PLATFORM THAT REALLY GOT MY EYES POPPING OUT OF MY HEAD. IT WAS SO HIGH UP AND I HELD MY BREATH EVERY TIME SOMEONE WALKED TO THE EDGE OF THE BOARD AND JUMPED. I WAS CAPTIVATED.
Dad’s attack with lemon juice had an effect on my hair – it wasn’t highlights, I promise!
I didn’t even want to swim and Dad had to virtually drag me away.
‘That looks like fun, can I learn?’ I asked Mum.
We picked up a leaflet and my parents booked William and me in for five lessons, starting the following weekend. Dad used to joke that it was the best £25 he ever spent.
On the day of my first lesson one Saturday morning, I left the changing room and walked out towards the diving pool, but at the entrance there was a ‘Pool Closed’ sign. I legged it back to the changing room and sat on one of the benches, deflated. I felt so disappointed. Dad reassured me that it was just because I was so early and when I went back out, thankfully someone saw me looking upset and opened the gate. As I entered the poolside, I looked up and saw Dad waving down at me from the balcony and giving me a huge grin and a big thumbs-up. He barely missed a single session after that.
In our first lesson, we jumped off the side of the pool and off the 1m springboard. I love the feeling of weightlessness. I always love being in the water and to combine jumping off the side into the water feels like a different and fun way to be able to swim. I felt free, like I could do anything.
William was a better diver than me. However hard I tried to pick up the dives immediately, he always seemed to get them quicker. Like most brothers, I loved the fun sense of competition between us. There were other kids there too, but from the beginning we were always chasing each other.
The family caravan. My dad would say, ‘Don’t come knocking when the caravan is rocking!’
Me as Elvis!
Not long after we started diving, Mum and Dad bought a caravan and we used to motor across to Watergate Bay in Newquay most weekends. We spent our days on our bikes, swimming, playing cricket or tennis, or at the clubhouse where they had kids’ clubs running every day to keep us all entertained. I loved karaoke and Dad told me that he thought singing in front of an audience would help with the nerves when I was diving, so we would go to the clubhouse and I would belt out S Club 7’s ‘Reach for the Stars’. It obviously worked, because at my Aunty Marie’s wedding I dressed up as Elvis in a mini white and gold jumpsuit and sang one of his classics, ‘Don’t be Cruel’.
Around then I was watching Blue Peter when they said they were looking for people to audition for this new band, S Club Juniors, based on the adult version, only for kids. I made Dad video my audition on a camcorder in the front room. It was really funny. I was getting really stressed out because I could not hear the music but Dad kept telling me that they needed to hear my voice. In the end, the video was of me singing, while also listening to the music through my earphones and doing an accompanying dance. I waited for a letter telling me I had the job but I never heard back from anyone. I hope the BBC never dig up that tape!
In December 2001 I got my first diving certificate, called Preliminary, for doing various dives off poolside, including forward and back dives, and floating in the tuck position in the pool. Forward dives always felt quite natural, but when I started to learn back dives for the first time, my instinct was to keep looking over my shoulder. It felt strange not being able to see where I was going; it’s like diving blind. The same day I got my Level 1 award for another list of moves like jumping off the side without swinging my arms and a forward tuck roll in the water.
I would look forward to every Saturday morning, when I would eagerly rush out of the changing rooms straight to the diving area to learn something new and, as the year progressed, I worked my way through the levels, which gradually introduced different, more complicated moves. Each time I got a colourful certificate to add to my collection, Dad would take it and laminate it in a special file he had created to keep everything together.
During the summer of 2002, the Commonwealth Games were on the TV. I was eight years old. My family and I watched the competition from our front room and I made sure we were recording it too. There would always be a race for the remote – if William or Ben got hold of it, I would never stand a chance.
I became obsessed and watched the videos of the British divers Pete Waterfield and Leon Taylor and the Canadian diver Alexandre Despatie diving over and over and over again, until Mum and Dad got really annoyed that they could not watch their programmes. I was fascinated by the way they somersaulted through the air so seamlessly. It was as if it didn’t take any effort at all to jump off the platform, spin around and hit the water with barely a splash. I kept thinking that I wanted to be able to do that and to execute the dives that they were doing. I learnt that Alex had won the 1998 Commonwealth Games gold medal on the 10m platform when he was just thirteen. He was my new hero.
Throughout the competition, the commentators kept mentioning the Olympics. I had never heard of them and asked Dad what they were.
‘It’s the biggest sporting event on the planet,’ he told me.
‘It’s the biggest competition you could ever do.’
‘Ah right,’ I said, mulling it over. ‘Wow. That sounds amazing.’
‘The next one is in Athens in 2004, then it’s in Beijing in 2008,’ Dad said. ‘There is some talk that London will bid again to host the event in 2012.’
I went upstairs and started researching it on the Internet. We had a computer on the landing that we all used to share and I found a picture of the flag. Dad came upstairs and sat by me, explaining that every country in the world had at least one colour from the Olympic rings in it and that the interlocking circles signified the continents coming together. I looked at all the different sports that there were from countries I had never even heard of.
I drew a picture. In between two sets of blue, yellow, black, green and red rings is a sausage man in a pair of Union Jack Speedos with spiky hair and big eyes doing a handstand at the Olympics in London 2012. Above are the words ‘My Ambition’ in bubble writing. It was my dream then, and still is now, to perform the best dives of my life there – to dive out of my socks.
I drew the picture imagining myself standing on the rostrum in London with my gold medal heavy around my neck.
My first competition was in March 2003. William had dropped out by then, because he was bored and wanted to concentrate on football and rugby at the weekends instead. Everyone in the diving club at the Central Park Pool was invited and the spectator area was filled with parents clapping and cheering on their kids. After doing a forward dive off poolside and a tuck dive off the 1m springboard, I was given a small silver trophy. All I could think was, ‘Oh my god! I’ve been given a trophy,’ and I wanted to do the competition again. I put it in pride of place on the shelf in my bedroom.
After my win, I was put into the competitive squad. Our group was called the Weenies because we were the most junior divers and my coach was a woman called Sam Grevett. She was the scary one that everyone was terrified of. Andy Banks, who trains me now, was the other Head Coach and he and Sam ran the business together. We were still only training once a week but Sam taught me the basics of good technique and about discipline and attention to detail. She showed me how important it is to master the basic dive before you move on to the harder version.
I TOOK THIS PHOTO OF ANDY BANKS, MY COACH. HE ALWAYS TELLS ME ‘THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS LUCK, JUST GOOD PREPARATION.’
We learnt about the fundamentals of competitions. Springboard dives are arranged into five groups: forward, where the diver faces forwards and rotates forwards; back, where the diver faces backwards and rotates backwards; reverse group, where the diver faces forwards and rotates backwards towards the board; inward, where the diver faces backwards and rotates forwards towards the board; and twist, where the diver performs a dive from any of the above group, but at the same time, they twist their body about a longitudinal axis. The sixth group, added for the platform competition, is the armstand group, where the diver is on their hands facing the board with their back to the water and rotates over to somersault forwards, or cuts through their hands to rotate in a reverse direction Alternatively, a diver can be on their hands facing the water with their back to the board and rotating backwards.
Most dives in these groups can be performed in any one of three positions: straight, where the body and legs are straight with no bending at the hips or knees; piked, with the body bent at hips, legs straight without bending at the knees; and tucked, when the body is bunched up close to the knees, bent at the hips and knees, with elbows in, hands clasping the shins.
Competitions are conducted by a referee, five judges, two recorders, a computer operator and an announcer. After each dive, the referee signals to the judges, who input their scores into the computer pad or flash scorecards. The points scored can range from 0 to 10. The judge will consider the approach or starting position, takeoff, flight and entry of the dive, and then post an award having looked at the dive as a whole. Judges do not take the difficulty of the dive into consideration.
The recorders copy down the judges’ scores and deduct the highest and lowest mark. They then multiply the remaining three awards by the tariff (degree of difficulty) of the dive.
EACH DIVE IS AFFORDED A TARIFF. THIS RANGES FROM 1.2 UP TO 4.7 FOR THE MORE COMPLICATED DIVES. THIS MEANS THAT THE DIVER WHO CAN COMPETENTLY PERFORM HIGHERTARIFF DIVES CAN OFTEN HAVE THE ADVANTAGE OVER THE ONE WITH EASIER DIVES. HOWEVER, THIS IS ONLY THE CASE IF THE DIVER PERFORMS THE MORE DIFFICULT DIVE WELL.
For example:
A back dive from 1m has a tariff of 1.5
If the dive scores 5s from all judges = 15 points
15 × 1.5 = 22.50 in total
A reverse dive tucked from 1m has a tariff of 1.6
If the dive scores 5s from all the judges = 15 points
15 × 1.6 = 24.00 in total
However, if the back dive scores 5.5s from all the judges = 16.50 points
16.5 × 1.5 = 24.75 in total
If the reverse dive scores 4.5s from all judges = 13.50 points
13.5 × 1.6 = 21.60 in total
Each dive is also given a number code, so it can be explained quickly. For example, a forward three and a half somersaults in a tuck position (107c) carries a tariff of 2.8.
There are various penalties. The most common are: a failed dive where the amount of rotation or twist is not within 90 degrees of the pre-declared amount and the diver receives no points; the restart – if a diver stops or pauses after starting, or if, when performing an armstand dive, the diver’s feet return to touch the board, the diver will restart and have two points deducted from the overall score; if the diver shows a flight position other than the one declared in advance, the judges will be instructed to award no more than two points for the dive. Finally, on entering the water headfirst divers must have their arms positioned beyond their heads so their hands strike the water first, and for foot-first entries they must have their arms held by their sides. Failure to observe these arm positions on entry into the water will result in the referee instructing judges to award no more than four and a half points for the dive.
I also learned that the judges are looking for lots of things: a good, smooth approach; the takeoff needs to show control and balance and a good angle; elevation; a good execution – with a clean technique and form. The most important part is the entry because that’s the thing the judges see last so it’s normally what they remember. It needs to be near vertical, with the smallest amount of splash possible. However, since judges must give their scores instantaneously, they base their scores more on a gut instinct and overall impression rather than actual calculation.
When we started talking about competitions I got this bubble of excitement in my belly, I could not wait to start. I also started to get nervous, hoping that I could perform the dives I had been doing really well in training sessions at the competitions. Most of all, I could not wait to get more trophies. They would always be sat glistening on the side of the pool and I wanted to fill my shelf at home with as many as I could.