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...
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, all while trying to process what it meant to be an Olympian in eighth grade. He shares what it felt like to lose his father to a brain tumor at 17, just one year before the London 2012 Olympics, and how his dad never cared about results, only that Tom was 18th best in the whole country even if he came dead last. He reflects on meeting Dustin Lance Black, the Oscar winning screenwriter who flew to the UK to see him, only to be told by management that dating an LGBTQ activist would be bad for his image, and how falling in love felt like one more thing he loved that the world said was wrong.
There's also a raw reflection on fear, identity, and what it means to thrive under pressure. Tom talks about hitting his head twice while diving, why Andy taught him that the day you stop being scared on the board is the day something goes wrong, and how knitting became the reason he was able to win Olympic gold at the Tokyo 2020 Games. He opens up about coming out at 19 through a YouTube video because he was tired of being misquoted and feeling ashamed, why he believes vulnerability is a practice and not a destination, and how becoming Papa to Robbie and Phoenix is the role he's most proud of beyond all his Olympic medals. He shares what it's like to retire at 30 and wake up every day wondering if he could do one more Olympics in LA 2028, why there's no such thing as good luck only good preparation, and why the greatest form of activism is just living your authentic life every single day. And he reflects on what his father, who recorded everything up until two days before he died, would want the world to know.
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Chapters ☀️
Chapters
- 00:00:00 Intro: The Coach Who Said He'd Never Make It
- 00:06:35 Standing on the Board, Crying: The Day Andy Walked In
- 00:08:52 Do You Want to Go to Beijing? The 12-Year-Old's Olympic Plan
- 00:13:29 The Perfectionist Who Felt Everything Too Deeply
- 00:16:13 Titian: Learning to Compete Every Single Day
- 00:17:59 It's About Bloody Time: Winning Gold After Four Olympics
- 00:18:26 The Bullying After Beijing: When Being an Olympian Made It Worse
- 00:20:21 Everything I Loved Got Taken Away: Dad, Diving, and Being Gay
- 00:30:17 18th in Rio: The God Wink and Your Story Doesn't End Here
- 00:40:13 The Fear Is What Stops You Making Mistakes
- 00:41:45 Knitting Saved My Olympic Gold: Finding Calm in the Chaos
- 00:43:13 Nothing Will Ever Compare: Life After Retirement at 30
- 00:44:34 Papa: The Role I'm Most Proud Of Beyond All the Medals
- 00:46:05 LA 2028: Could I Do One More?
- 00:51:16 The Perfect Little Boy Syndrome: Overachieving to Hide Being Gay
ABOUT THIS PODCAST:
The Person Who Believed In Me is hosted by David Begnaud, founder and CEO of Do Good Crew and often called "America's storyteller." In each episode, David sits down with world-class guests to ask one simple question: Who believed in you before the world did? Big names. Honest stories. Relatable takeaways. Different paths — same question.
David is also a CBS News contributor and host of the weekly segment Beg Knows America, which airs every Monday morning.
Host: David Begnaud
Guest: Tom Daley
Executive Producer: Olivier Delfosse
Associate Producer: Jonah Johnson
Booker: Sully Bloch
Director of Photography: Foster Parks
Live Production Technician: Joseph Gabay & Will Whitley (Statik Creative)
Social Media: Maxim Trofimenko, Kylee Anderson, Gracie Pekrul
Theme Music: Slipstream
Post-Production: Longwave Digital, David & Luana Co.
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