Tom Daley has opened up about the final time he squeezed his father’s hand before his ‘cheerleader, best friend and mentor’ died of a brain tumour in 2011.
The Olympic diver speaks of his heartache in Warner Bros. Discovery’s new feature documentary, ‘Tom Daley: 1.6 Seconds’, which is released on Sunday.
Daley shot to prominence when, aged 14, he became Great Britain’s second youngest male Olympian at Beijing 2008. The diver would go on to win five medals — including gold at Tokyo 2020 — and retired after last summer’s Paris Games where he won silver.
The 90-minute feature takes you back to the start of the 31-year-old’s career and navigates through the highs and lows of his life inside and outside of the pool.
For Daley, the early part of his career was overshadowed by his father’s poor health and then death.
Robert Daley was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2006 but continued to follow his son’s career around the world despite his illness. Doctors initially operated and removed the majority of it, but it began to grow back over time.
Tom Daley, pictured with his dad in 2008, lost his ‘cheerleader, best friend and mentor’ in 2011
Tom Daley tells the story of his career in a new documentary which is released on Sunday
Robert shows his playful side during a Mail Sport interview just a month before his death
‘I remember walking into the hospital and then seeing him in the hospital bed with bandages wrapped around his head,’ Daley recalls in the documentary.
‘That was when I found out that he had just had a brain tumour the size of a grapefruit removed.
‘At the time I wasn’t told that it was terminal, so just I always assumed, and had the hopeful optimism that he was going to recover, because you think of your parents as invincible. You think of your parents as the people that are going to be there for you through everything, or at least until you become an adult.’
And it was in February 2011, when Daley was in Mexico preparing for the London Games, when his world fell apart.
‘My mum was like, “Hey, Tom. Just wanted to speak to you and let you know that you’re going to be coming home this afternoon. Your dad’s not very well. He’s currently in the living room, and he’s been put on end of life care”.
‘When I left, he wasn’t doing great, but he was fine, like my dad was gonna get better. He had to get better. How could I keep going? How could I go to the next Olympics? How could I do what I do every day without him?
Daley rushed back to their home in Plymouth, where Robert had been moved into a downstairs room, to spend a final few months with his dad before he passed away.
‘Whenever I wasn’t training, or whenever I wasn’t at school, I was sat right next to him working on my driving theory test,’ Daley said.
Tom Daley sat by his father’s side, working on his driving theory in their final months together
Daley retired after winning silver with Noah Williams in the synchro 10m platform at Paris
The diver won his first medal at London 2012 but was on ‘autopilot’ after his father’s death
‘That was the one thing that we could still do together.’
‘When I had my 17th birthday on May 21 he wanted to come to the window, but he couldn’t really walk, but he tried to get to the window anyway. I did my first driving lesson. Came back, and it was on May 27 that he passed away.
‘I kept squeezing his hand, and he would squeeze back. And then I remember the last time that he squeezed my hand and then he didn’t squeeze back anymore.
‘I didn’t just lose my dad because he was much more, he was my biggest cheerleader, my best friend, mentor. I mean, our whole life came to a standstill.’
Just a year later, Daley won his first medal at London 2012 — bronze in the 10m platform — but he admits that he was operating on ‘autopilot’, such was his grief.
‘There’s periods of time where I just have no recollection of what happened, and I felt like I just went into some kind of autopilot of just doing what I thought was right at the time and what other people wanted for me, or what other people expected me to be, or what other people expected me to act like,’ he said.
‘I kind of shut down. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I went to training the next day. I went to the National Championships 10 days later. I just kept going because I didn’t know anything else.
‘I didn’t have anything or have anyone else. I was alone. I felt like I had to put on a brave face, like I always have to, because I always have to keep this front that everything was going to be ok and it wasn’t, but I didn’t know how to deal with that.’
