The Truth About Coming Home As An Olympic Medalist At 14 | Tom Daley

About this episode

Tom Daley shares his journey from a terrified child diver to an Olympic champion, discussing the challenges he faced along the way.

Before Tom Daley became one of the most decorated divers in British history with five Olympic medals and five Olympic Games under his belt, he was a terrified nine year old standing on the end of a diving board, crying his eyes out and refusing to jump into the pool. Then Andy Banks, the head coach at Plymouth Diving Club, walked in and said the words that almost ended everything before it started: Tom Daley will never be a diver for as long as he'll live. In this deeply personal and unguarded conversation, the Olympic champion sits down with David Begnaud to share the story of the coach who doubted him at first, then never stopped believing in him, and how that belief carried him through bullying, loss, and the darkest years of his life. Tom opens up about the moment Andy pulled him aside at 12 years old and asked if he wanted to go to the Beijing Olympics in 2008, laying out a roadmap for a kid who would become the youngest British diver to compete at an Olympic Games at just 14 years and 81 days old. He talks about coming back from Beijing and enduring brutal physical and emotional bullying at school, getting rugby tackled in the field and threatened to have his legs broken…

People in this episode

Host: David Begnaud

Guest: Tom Daley

Topics covered

• Olympic journey
• personal growth
• bullying
• loss
• diving

Keywords

• Tom Daley
• Olympic medalist
• bullying
• diving
• personal story

Mentioned in this episode

Places: Beijing, Britain

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