World records tumbled, Britain won four gold medals, polyurethane swimwear was
the subject of fierce debate and the American phenomenon Michael Phelps even
lost a race — the world swimming championships that ended in Rome on Sunday
were not short on achievement, drama or controversy. But perhaps the most
memorable scene of the competition came not in the pool, or on the medal
podium, but in the press conference room.
Tom Daley had just become the first British diver to win gold at the world
championships and, at 15, the youngest in the history of the sport when his
father Rob burst into the gathering. “Tom, come and give me a cuddle,” said
a tearful Rob as his son was addressing the media. Television viewers around
the world united in a collective cringe, and newspapers had a field day
reporting on the curse of the embarrassing dad.
For his part, Tom admits to being taken aback as well. “When I saw him
approach me from the back of the room, crying, I just thought, ‘Dad, what
are you doing?’,” he says, rolling his eyes and grinning as he sits on the
sofa in the lounge of the family home in Plymouth. “But Dad gets like that
at every competition I do well in, as does Grandad. He’s more emotional,
whereas Mum doesn’t cry — she’s more the strong, silent type, like me. If
something’s troubling me I tend not to let it show.”
Despite his phenomenal achievements — last year he became, at 13, the youngest
European champion and the second youngest Briton to compete at an Olympic
Games — he has had his troubles. There was the much-publicised spat with his
synchronised diving partner, Blake Aldridge, and the bullying that he
suffered that caused him to change school. He also had to contend with that
nightmare scenario for any self-respecting teenage boy — sharing a bedroom
with his little brother. That particular issue will soon be resolved as Tom
and Ben, 10, will get a room of their own when the extension to their three
bedroom detached house is completed.
Rob and his wife Debbie have three sons and competition between them can be
fierce. There are fights — “over who’s watching what on telly and whose go
it is on the trampoline, but I always win,” Tom says laughing. “That might
not last long with William [13] getting bigger because of his rugby.”
These domestic disputes, though, were nothing compared with the furore Tom
encountered at the Olympic Games in Beijing last year. After all the
publicity surrounding his selection for the Great Britain team, he and
Aldridge finished last in the final of the 10 metre synchronised platform
event. Afterwards, Aldridge, 26, blamed Tom for their performance, claiming
that his young partner’s nerves ruined their chances. Tom, meanwhile, was
unhappy that Aldridge had taken a phone call from his mother before their
final dive.
“He’s an idiot,” Tom mutters now. “I was more confused than anything and I
didn’t fully realise what had happened, that he was ringing his mum in the
middle of the competition on live telly, because he was out of sight. My
look of disgust while I was showering after our dive was because he’d
annoyed me, he’d given up. We were in sixth place going into the last round
and I said to him: ‘You can’t give up! You don’t want to go away in last
place!’”
The row was all over newspapers and TV bulletins and many commentators
criticised Aldridge for blaming his young team-mate. “Afterwards, I felt
embarrassed and humiliated,” Tom says. “A successful diving partnership
requires teamwork, trust and respect.”
The pair did not compete together again. Aldridge later claimed to have
received hate mail and was verbally abused in the street. He also had to
withdraw from the British championships this year after being allegedly
assaulted in a nightclub.
Tom is now paired with 18-year-old Max Brick, who won the synchronised 10
metre event at the British championships this year with another diver. Brick
is much closer to Tom in age than Aldridge and is both a friend and a diving
partner, Tom says, which makes it easier to get the best out of each other
and cope with the long periods away from home.
Another unfortunate result of Tom’s success was that it led to him becoming a
target for taunts and bullies at his school, Eggbuckland Community College
in Plymouth.Tom, who does not come across as an arrogant teenager, says that
he wanted to blend in at school and not boast about his achievements. But
despite trying to keep his head down and concentrate on his subjects, he was
singled out for abuse. The taunts intensified and, on one occasion, someone
threatened to break his legs. “Initially it was more annoying than
anything,” Tom says, “with name-calling like ‘Here comes Diver Boy’, people
tripping me up or emptying my pencil case over the floor. I was just trying
my hardest, doing something I loved, but I was getting the mick taken out of
me.
“I didn’t want them to derail my efforts, but more people started joining in
until it seemed like the whole school was against me. That’s when it was
hard. I’d be strong and laugh in their faces when they’d pick on me and say
‘Yeah, good one,’ to their insults. While most kids might deal with bullies
using their fists and give them a good clout, I couldn’t because it would
risk my sporting career, and give them a reason to go and break my legs. Mum
just wanted to storm down and put them in headlocks when I fessed up.”
After eight months of escalating problems, and an unsatisfactory response by
the school in the eyes of Tom’s parents, he withdrew at Easter and enrolled
at the fee-paying Plymouth College. Although Michael Foot and Dawn French
are among its most famous former pupils, the co-educational independent
school specialises in sport and has an elite swimming programme (one alumna,
Cassandra Patten, competed in the Beijing Olympics, winning bronze in the
10km open water event).many parents can appreciate, Rob Daley explained at
the time that, as a family, they simply had to do something. “We have a duty
as parents to protect our children, make sure everything goes right for
them, and the bullying has reached an intolerable level,” he said. “We had
to act.”
So far, at least, the move seems to be paying off. As Tom says: “Rather than
being one in 1,500, like at my old school, there are 50 of us competing in
various sports at international level, so I don’t stand out as much. They
really understand the importance of juggling training with my studies and
the pressure involved. It’s only been a couple of months, but I finally feel
settled and like I fit in.”
Tom still attends school full time and manages to fit in four hours’ training,
six days a week, 40 per cent of which is in the pool and the rest involves
trampolining, weights, conditioning and Pilates. The Pilates is partly to
prevent injuries given the physical strains involved in diving.
“The pressure can be a lot on someone my age, but I’m confident I can cope.
I’m sensible and level-headed. I have more experienced athletes, like Steve
Redgrave, I can call upon for advice when it comes to dealing with the
performance anxiety I sometimes get. Luckily, I’m getting better at keeping
this under control.
“When I’m training, I have to eat very sensibly, unlike most 15-year-olds, but
I don’t have a set diet. I like McDonald’s but I really don’t have it very
often.”
That may be the case but, if his Twitter page is anything to go by, Tom spends
most of the time when he isn’t engaged in his sport either eating or
thinking about eating — if he isn’t “on the way to grandmas for a good old
roast” he is “getting Chinese” or a “pasty for tea”. Growing boys require a
lot of fuelling, doubly so when they are such committed sportsmen, and Tom
finds that the physical demands placed upon him can be quite exhausting. “I
do get quite tired,” he admits, “but all divers who reach the top level,
like my idols Alexandre Despatie and Leon Taylor, have made sacrifices, so
I’m no different. Sometimes I have to get up extra early in the morning to
finish my homework or work late after training and there are days where training
is the last thing I feel like doing after school, but I just get on with it.”
Despite the sackloads of fan mail he gets, mostly from teenage girls around
the world, the pride with which his closest female friends talk about him
online suggests that he hasn’t let his success go to his head. “My true
close friends, whom I’ve known since moving up from primary school, don’t
make a big deal of my achievements and don’t treat me any differently now,”
he says. “None of us read the papers really so it’s easier to avoid the
hype. To them, I’m just plain old Tom that they can have a lark with.”a lark
means going to the beach or watching Superbad or listening to the
Black Eyed Peas with friends. As for serious dating, he says, that can wait
because he barely has time for himself right now.
The highs and lows that he has already experienced have helped to make sure
that Tom remains a level-headed boy, but there is another important reason,
he believes. One day in 2006, his father came home with a shaved head. “He
made us believe he had done it for charity,” Tom recalls, “which made sense
because it was very close to Red Nose Day.” In fact, Rob had a brain tumour
and had shaved his head as preparation for an operation the next day.
“Things weren’t right even before I knew the real story. My form was off and I
was going through a bit of a rough time. I was getting mental blocks at the
top of the platform and letting my nerves get the better of me. I’d be
standing there too scared to move and would have to climb down again.
“The first time I knew the full extent was when we went to see him in hospital
when he was coming round from the anaesthetic and he had a big bandage
around his head. It hit me then and I was really worried because I didn’t
know if he was going to pull through. But as the months passed and he
started to get better, so did my diving. I had a reason to do well again and
I was working harder. My dad’s recovery gave me the motivation to succeed.”
The Daley family are supporting the O2 campaign to make family life better
organised with the launch of the O2 Joggler and Your Family Bolt On,
available at O2 stores and O2.co.uk/family.
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