As a younger diver, Tom Daley by no means imagined he’d someday really feel assured sufficient to share specifics of his private life with followers. That modified in 2013, when the British Olympic diver got here out as homosexual in a YouTube video.
Twelve years later, Daley will get much more candid in a brand new documentary, “Tom Daley: 1.6 Seconds.” Launched this month on Discovery+ and Olympics.com within the U.S. and on HBO Max elsewhere, the movie finds the now-retired athlete reflecting on his rise to fame, his path towards dwelling as his true self and his relationships together with his husband of eight years, screenwriter and filmmaker Dustin Lance Black, and his late father, Robert Daley.
“It’s weird when somebody comes to you and says, ‘We want to make a documentary about your life.’ I was a little bit hesitant to start with, because … what do I even have to say? What do I want to say?” Daley advised HuffPost in an interview. “But the more I got into what was going on beneath the surface when I was growing up … the fact that my kids are going to be able to understand a bit more about what their papa did … it felt like therapy.”
Admirers of Daley’s aquatic prowess received’t be upset by “1.6 Seconds,” the title of which alludes to his gold medal win within the males’s synchronized 10-meter platform on the 2020 Summer season Olympics in Tokyo, held in 2021. Whereas engaged on the movie, director Vaughan Sivell pored by way of hours of archival footage exhibiting Daley coaching for childhood competitions and, later, his 4 Olympic Video games.
In truth, Daley himself hadn’t watched lots of the movies earlier than he sat down to offer his on-camera commentary. He may be seen tearing up after some notably emotional clips, a few of which embody his father, who died of most cancers in 2011 at age 40.
“If I could be half the dad my dad was to me, I feel like my life would be complete,” Daley stated. “My middle name is Robert, named after my dad. My oldest son is also a Robert ― we call him Robbie. The relationship I had with my dad is how I model being a father now.”
Bruce Glikas by way of Getty Photos
Different emotional moments within the movie embody the lead-up to Daley’s popping out in addition to the early days of his relationship with Black, whom he refers to easily as “Lance.” Along with 6-year-old Robbie, Black and Daley share a 1-year-old son, Phoenix.
“When I came out, I had no idea what was going to happen on the other side of it,” Daley stated. “I was told I was going to lose sponsorships and not be able to compete in certain countries. There was a lot of fear around it [and] I didn’t think I’d be able to open myself up to falling in love beyond a surface level. But when I met Lance, it felt like I’d met my forever teammate.”
Black just lately accomplished work on a documentary of his personal, “Rock Out,” which examines the LGBTQ+ neighborhood’s unheralded affect on heavy steel, punk and rock music.
Daley, in the meantime, has shifted his skilled focus. As seen in “1.6 Seconds,” he famously took up knitting and crocheting in 2020, and has since launched the Made With Love model devoted to his handiwork. He continues to tout knitting as his “superpower” and a “mental reset,” and can additional showcase his abilities because the host of “The Game of Wool,” a forthcoming tv sequence.
Sarah Morris by way of Getty Photos
Sports and knitting each issue into Daley’s newfound function as a psychological well being advocate. On the 2012 Summer season Olympics in London, he was granted a re-dive after getting distracted by numerous digicam flashes from the group ― a chilling second captured in “1.6 Seconds” that impacted his personal psychological well being.
“We spend all of our life training our bodies to be able to do the thing,” he stated. “But if you don’t train your brain as well, how do you know if you’re going to be able to hold it together in competition? On a micro or macro level, at some point, everybody deals with a really stressful situation, and how you navigate that and perform under stress and under pressure really will play into how successful that moment might be. So I think for me, I wish I’d started those mindfulness practices slightly earlier in my career.”
Nowadays, his routine additionally consists of “going on walks with my husband. We drop our kids off at school, and then we go for a hike, and we just spend the first hour of our morning just talking to each other. And I know that might not necessarily be 100% mindfulness, but it’s our way of talking to each other about anything and everything.”
Clive Rose by way of Getty Photos
