WHOOP Podcast - Diver Tom Daley on winning Olympic gold, the importance of mindset, and the power of being the truest version of yourself

Episode Date: September 29, 2021

World-class diver Tom Daley details his journey from child prodigy to Olympic champion, and explains what he’s learned along the way about mindset, visualization, and being the true version of yourself. Tom discusses how he found diving (2:57), becoming world champion at 15 (6:16), coming out (10:01), being your true self (14:01), visualization (15:02), how he uses WHOOP (17:48), mindfulness and meditation (21:29), peaking for the Olympic final (25:18), managing fear (30:03), winning gold (39:53), accomplishing your dreams (42:39), and making sacrifices to succeed (44:42). Support the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

What's up, folks? Welcome back to the WOOP podcast, where we sit down with top athletes, researchers, scientists, and more to learn what the best in the world are doing and how you can unlock your own best performance. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, founder and CEO of Woop, where we are on a mission to unlock human performance. That's right. For you all, if you want to get started with WOOP, especially now that we got the new 4.0, it's a reminder. you can use the code Will W-I-L to get 15% off a W-W-M membership. Check that out at Woop.com. We got a great guest this week.

World-class diver, Olympic gold medalist, Tom Daly. Tom is fresh off of gold medal winning performance in the synchronized 10-meter platform event at Tokyo Olympics. He made his first Olympic team at the age of 14. He was the youngest competitor there. And despite being one of the most accomplished divers on the planet, he talks very openly about how he felt like a fraud until he finally captured that elusive gold medal this summer. It's a really powerful conversation. Tom's also so much more than an athlete.

He's a father. He's an LGBTQ activist. And he's got a lot to share on prioritizing your well-being and managing pressure. We discuss what Tom's dad taught him about being the most authentic version of himself. How coming out as gay in 2013 lifted a weight off his shoulders. His thoughts on controlling fear. What does he do exactly leading up to that climactic moment of diving, which takes on average about one and a half seconds? The role of visualization and preparation plays in his success, how he uses whoop to dial in every aspect of his personal and professional life.

You got to listen to how he actually figured out exactly what he should do to get in the green on the day of the gold medal, 97% recovery on the day he won a gold medal. and what he's learned about life being a father and how that puts his accomplishments and perspective. You can also check out Tom's memoir coming up for air, which is hitting bookstores this fall. Okay, without further ado, here is Tom Daly. Tom, welcome to the Wootke podcast. Thank you for having me. So you have just come off being the Olympic sensation that everyone enjoyed watching, especially the knitting. We're going to come to all of that.

and what I imagined and was an amazing moment winning your first gold medal. I wanted to start early in your career, though, and particularly, I'm reading here that you started diving when you were seven years old. At an age like that, you know, were you already dreaming of what a phenomenal diver you were going to become? I actually, I mean, I started diving, like you say, when I was seven years old. So I've now been doing it for 20 years, which seems like, I mean, a lifetime. it really is a lifetime, really.

And, I mean, when I was seven, I was just lucky enough to see people diving and saw them throwing themselves off a diving boards, doing somersaults and twists. And I just thought, that just looks really cool. I want to be able to do that. And so I went to my local pool, had a diving session there, loved it, and went back ever since. And it was just one of those, like, almost like, faked moments when you, like, the stars aligned and it was just something that I was meant to be doing.

And it was when I was about nine years old, I had a little book that I, used to draw around the medals that I'd won, write a description about what the competition was, how old I was, and how I felt about the competition. And in the front of that book, I drew a picture of me doing a handstand with the Olympic rings saying London 2012. So when I was nine years a whole, I had the dream that I wanted to compete in the Olympics. And at that time, it was the London 2012 Olympic Games, because at that point, we were a host nation. We hadn't been given the competition yet. So it was just a dream that I wanted to be able to realize. And I think, you know, that's where the power of visualization really comes in because, I mean,

I got to my first Olympics to 2008, but, you know, I never, when I started, ever dreamed of being good at it. It was just something that I enjoyed. So you start by really enjoying it. And who tells you at age, I don't know, eight years old or nine years old, hey, you're really good at this. It sounds like you started doing competitions fairly quickly. Yeah. So I started competing like in like the national novices, which is like the really basic level competitions. And When I was just turned nine, there was a national novice or national skills competition which was held in Plymouth where I grew up. And the top three of that competition got then pulled aside to do some talent testing, like how long your arms, how long your legs, how high can you jump, how flexible

are you, how quickly can you do 10 vsits on the floor, all these little tests. And I just scraped by with those physical tests. And then it got put me, put me onto a program called the World Class start program, which is essentially people from all over the country that showed some kind of potential to becoming an elite diver. So I went to start as going to these training camps where they would, again, do all of the measurements about how, you know, flexible we were, how quickly we could do certain things. And I was never very good at all of those tests. But in the diving pool, I was very spatially aware. I was very proficient when it came to learning new skills and landing vertically. And I had like this spatial awareness that I could always land for

vertical into the water, which was something that has been very useful as a diver because that's the whole aim of the sport. So I basically went to those training camps and they basically guided me through all the steps that I needed to learn the dives that I needed for international competition. So you win the world championships at age 15. Yes. That must have been a fairly big moment for you. I mean, I had no idea what I was. It was the year after the Olympics in 2008. again, going into those Olympics, I had no idea what I was doing. I was just diving because I enjoyed it and I loved it. And then, yeah, going into Rome in 2009 for the World Championships, I was just diving really consistently and really well that year. And it was just one of those things that it was an outdoor competition, which in diving makes it slightly more challenging because of lighting conditions, wind conditions, lots of different things.

And I had a slightly easier degree of difficulty list than everyone else because I was still only, 15. So everyone else was having these really difficult dives and doing these really complex skills. And on the last round, they all faltered and didn't do so well. And there was just me who was sitting in fourth position the whole way through, just plodding along, doing my thing. And then all of a sudden, I do my last dive the best that I've done it and score one of the highest scores in the competition. And then everyone else starts falling around after me. And before I knew it, I thought I'd won a bronze medal. And then I went up to silver. and then I won.

And it was obviously a massive shock to me, but it was definitely one of those defining moments in my career. I mean, it's hard to think about, you know, being a world champion at something at the age of 15 because you're also so young. Like, what were your parents saying to you at this stage? And was it clear to you at this stage that this is what you were going to be doing

for the next 15 years of your life? Yeah, I mean, it was something that I, my dad came with me to every single competition and every single training camp and everything. And he used to have this massive Uli and Jack flag that used to wave in the audience every time we went to one of these competitions. And that competition will stick out for me for the rest of my life because in the press conference afterwards, my dad actually managed to sneak into the press conference, pretend to be a journalist, put his hand up and say, Tom, I have a question for you. Can you come and give me a cuddle? And I remember it's at the front of this press conference, oh my God, dad, what are you doing? This is the most embarrassing thing in my whole life. obviously I had to go and give him a hug. So he gave him a hug and he obviously told me how proud he was and, you know, obviously had been a massive support of mine for like his whole life. Sadly, he passed away in 2011 due to cancer. So he actually never got to see me win any

Olympic medals or do any my other achievements. But like, so that's why that world championships to me is so special is because he got to see all of that and experience it. And, you know, it was always our dream together to win an Olympic gold medal. And so I'd like, to think he'd be very proud of everything I've achieved since. Sure. Now, do you find that you think a lot about him when you're training or competing or, you know, more so you recognize that he would just be proud of you today? I think about him all the time, of course.

My dad was an absolute, like, I mean, he was nuts. He did not care what anyone else thought about him. He would just do anything to make everyone laugh. Like, I were joking about it, like, with my teammates, all my teammates were like, If you had just won Olympic gold medal in Japan, your dad would have been the first one, skinny dipping and streaking across the pool side and then jumping in the pool. Like he was that kind of person. He was just so, you know, loving and caring and supportive of everything that I did.

And I think it's all those lessons that you taught me that at the time, again, with that press conference, I thought it was the most embarrassing thing in my life. But it was also a valuable lesson to not care what anyone else thought as long as you show your love and affection to your son. And like now being a parent, like I understand the sacrifices and all of the things that he did for me and to think that I can start to pass on those life lessons that he taught me unto my son. It's exciting. Yeah, what an amazing lesson, right? I mean, to live your true self and live fearlessly, right? And to be a public figure the way you are too, I think having that

confidence is probably so important, especially for someone who's performing all the time. What age did you come out of? I came out in December 2013, so I was 19 years old. So quite a long time ago now, it feels. It feels like an eternity ago, to be honest. But I remember at the time being so completely terrified, like all of my management were completely like saying to me, don't, I'm no longer with this management company. But they were said to me like, don't do it.

Do not come out. You will lose all of your sponsorship. You will lose all of your fans. like your life will change and not for the better and I was just like you know what like I got to the point where I was just I can't live hiding anymore like I am and if people don't like it they don't like it but I can't you know spend the rest of my life and fear so I just wanted to take control of the situation so I came out and at the time in 2030 it like things have come on a long way since 2013 I feel even though in 2013 it felt quite progressive anyway but yeah like

it was obviously a massive weight off of my shoulders. And it's just, it's also surreal to think that I assumed that there were way more openly gay athletes still like out competing or had been in the past. And especially like growing up, like there wasn't really anyone that was out still competing. Most of the time people came out once they had retired. So I found out recently that I was the, apparently the third ever openly gay man to win an Olympic gold medal, which to me seems kind of crazy. you'd think that people have been, and the first person was in 2008 with Matthew Mitchum in diving as well. So it seems to be that the divers are the gay men are diving well. That's a good, that's a good take. Well, you know, it's interesting. If you look at just sort of

the percentage of the population that's said to be gay versus the percentage to your point of Olympians or even professional athletes who are well known, it does seem like those percentages don't quite add up, right? I mean, statistically, you'd think there would be more LGBT people in the world of sport. And I think, you know, a lot of that is, like, you take, for example, sports like football, soccer, rugby, like the sports that are considered to be more masculine. I don't think it's the players within the sport that are particularly going to have, like, a difficult view on it.

It's more the fans. Like, for example, in the soccer, Euro Cup, in the, it was actually the Wembley final. England was playing versus Italy, and they went to penalty shootouts. And there were three black men that missed penalties. And they caught absolute hell. And it was one of the times where I felt so ashamed

and disgusted to be English that I, I'm like, no wonder people don't come out in sports like football. Because, you know, we're not born with rainbow skin. We can be private. we can be in the closet and never come out and not have to subject ourselves to that kind of abuse, whereas people of color don't have that, you know, luxury, if you like, to not come out. And I think that's where I think that the fans can be so set in their ways that they won't necessarily accept someone for coming out. And I think it's going to take someone extremely brave

and someone that will change so many minds and so many hearts by coming out and sharing their personal story. But obviously it's a massive decision to make because people know the kind of things that they might subject themselves to. Yeah, well, I think you are that. You're, you know, leading the trail. I imagine for many athletes who are looking at your example now. So I hear what you're saying, though, about football specifically. And, you know, it was crazy just to see, like, such blatant and horrible racism associated with that game. I know exactly what you're talking about. So did you notice any difference in your performance or your comfort on that stage before or after, you know, coming out? I mean, of course, like, I always felt

comfortable when I was diving because I never really felt judged for anything other than my performance. But since after coming out, you just, I just had this like weight of just lifted off of me. Like I could just be who I am without really worrying. And I was able just to not overthink things anymore. I never had to think about having, you know, like what people were thinking about, like me hanging out with certain people and all these, like, all of that just kind of faded away. So it wasn't that I felt more comfortable with diving. It's like I felt happier and more comfortable outside of diving, which in turn made me feel better when I was training. Yeah, I mean, I would think that it would in some ways maybe make it easier to be just

your full self and not have to think as much about that moment leading up to the competition. Yeah, exactly. I was able just to focus. I could stop thinking and worrying about everything outside of the sport and I could actually focus more, which actually helped me, obviously. Now, you've talked about the importance for you in visualization and how that's been such a critical tool for you. Describe your visualization practice. Yeah, visualization for me has been so crucial in everything that I've done, especially this year because I had to spend a lot, like in the last 18 months, we couldn't go into the diving pool very often because of COVID. So I had to visualize all of my dives as many times as I could and visualize them only ever going

perfectly well, the best dives that you could possibly do. So I would visualize them over and over and over again. And then, you know, even when we were able to get back in the pool through subsequent lockdowns in the UK, I still then found myself having to use visualisation. because I had time out of the pool because I had concussion at the beginning of the year. Then I got COVID and I was out of the pool for eight weeks. And then I got back into the pool, did the World Cup, and then I had to have knee surgery six weeks before the Olympics.

And so I had spent a lot of time out of the pool this year. So I had to really focus hard on making sure that my visualization and all those techniques gave me the best chance of getting back to the pool quicker. because if you're visualizing something every single day when you get back to the pool, that like muscle memory, although you haven't been doing those movements, it comes back to so much quicker because you've been trying to connect those pathways as often as you can just through visualizing it and imagining yourself doing those diets. And for you when you're visualizing it, do you see all of it through your own eyes or do you

actually like it's almost like you're observing yourself as a fan, first person or third person? I do a mixture of both, honestly. when I'm actually not in the diving pool or any kind of diving scenario, I will do it in first person where I'm actually like, as if I'm on a roller coaster and I'm doing the dive myself.

When I'm in a competition, I'll watch it in third person. For some reason, I'll cover my eyes with my chamois, which is like that little cloth that we dry ourselves off with. And then I watch myself, as if I'm watching myself on TV

do the perfect dive, as if I'm a spectator, and then I go up onto the diving board. So interesting and so important. I mean, it's hard to imagine everything that you just told me about what you had to go through leading up to the Olympics that you would have had the enormous success that you did if you weren't able to do that practice. Because to your point, it's just so many reps that you got.

Yeah, I think it's so many reps. And that's where visualization comes in because I'm, you know, an older athlete in the world of diving. So for me, like I've done all of the, like, I think I got to the stage of my career where I've realized I've done all of the training and muscle memory things. I've done all of the things that are the crucial training, learning the diets, having done them for so many years. And for me, it's about arriving at the start line and arriving on that platform in the best condition I can. Body condition, mental condition, you name it, everything, so that I was as prepared mentally and physically as possible.

And that's where I use whoop a lot. It was because I had to measure all of my, you know, heart rate variability, my heart rate, my sleep, all of those things were actually what we, used as gauges in order for me to be able to get back into training and know when I was overpushing it, when I was underpushing it, when I could do more, when I should be doing less, all of the data that I was getting from that, like me with my physios and nutritionists and psychologists, my coach, my strength coach, people are all using that data in order to be able to figure out how I was going to get back to diving as quick as possible. Now with the visualization, did you find that you would ever visualize the negative. I'll give you an example, an extreme example. I interviewed

Alex Honnold on this podcast, Alex being the famous climber from Free Solo, so who's the first guy to scale El Capiton with no ropes. And this is a guy who he visualized every single one of his moves. And it was interesting talking to him about visualization because he said that he actually visualized dying, like he visualized it raining and him slipping. Like, he visualized it raining and him slipping. like he visualized a ton of negative stuff. And I was thinking about my own practice. And I find that for the most part, I'm visualizing very positive things happening,

you know, almost just like seeing the successful version of things come together. And it sounds to me like a lot of your practice is seeing it go perfectly every single time. Have you ever had negative ones creep in and tried to push them out? Have you ever embraced negative ones and tried to wrestle with them?

Oh, of course. I mean, that's the hardest part, is that you try to visualize your dives. And of course, especially if you have bad days or you're not in a great mood, it's so easy to slip into that, like visualizing something going wrong

or something going terribly. And I think, I imagine, you know, as a climber to like you, when you take your life in your own hands like that, you kind of have to visualize things going wrong in order to know what not to do almost.

Whereas in sport and in like a diving competition, everything is almost, to a certain extent, everything is so controlled. And there isn't really many, things that can, there aren't very many changing factors throughout this. There aren't many variables. So to be able to, you can, you have a better chance at overall visualizing yourself doing things well because there's less things that can change and go wrong. But like you say,

things will creep in. Things will, you'll have visualizations where things don't go quite to plan and you have to figure out your way of either rectifying them on, like if, for example, a start doesn't go so well as I take off and how am I going to correct that in the middle of the air or if things start going wrong, like I start wobbling in a handstand when I'm doing my visualization, how do I control my breathing, my heart rate to be able to get back to a position where I can start the dive again. So it's like you say, you have to just going to get to the point where it's almost like meditation and mindfulness. Like when you first start doing it, it's so difficult and you can't, I find myself, I used to find myself being like distracted all the time,

but you get to a place where you're able to visualize it every time perfectly and there's there's no option for it not to go that way now will you meditate most days yeah i do 10 minutes every morning like it's more of a mindfulness like breathing guided meditation that kind of thing or i'll um like i do lots of different things for mindfulness whether that be going for a walk whether that be sitting down and doing like breathing techniques for like 10 minutes or i might sit in knit for a little bit. Like there's so many different things that I do as a little bit of a like time for myself to to heal and recover. And now the visualization practice is separate from that, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. The visualization is very separate from that. Like I try to, it's almost like I see

meditation and mindfulness as if like you're going to the bank. You go there to get all of the the credit that you need for the day and like the stuff that you're going to need to be able to deal with the day ahead. And I think I find myself being way more agitated and anxious and easily annoyed if I don't do my meditation in the morning. because I feel like the meditation really sets me up to be a little bit more peaceful and have a little bit more gratitude and patience for a lot of things. And to tie it to your whoop data for a second, you know, at least I've seen this personally, when I'm really focused on different breathing techniques and exercises as part of my meditation

practice, I find it often benefits my heart rate variability that night or the following day. Have you seen that at all? Yeah, absolutely. It's really quite obvious when I have been meditated, because there might be a period of time when I've been busy and not done it for like three or four days. And I can see my heart rate and heart rate variability changing because, like, you know, little things like you don't realize

how much like mild forms of anxiety or little things that you start to worry about, like creep in and then that affects your sleep without you realizing it. And again, the whoop data has been great for realizing the little 1% changes that I can make. in order to be better, because if you make five, one percent changes, all of a sudden, you've got five percent that you're better than you were before. So it's just all of these little things that can really help in order to become the elite of the elite, if that makes sense. Now, for you, what have been a few of those things that you feel like have triggered the

biggest performance gains? So going into the Olympic Games, there's the synchro competition that I do is a straight final, it's just six dives. And I just have to arrive on the day of the competition, the best recovered that I can to do for the day. And using the Woop data, we practiced that a lot of what was good and what was going to work for me. But the crucial day for me was the individual event, which is split across two days. So I have to perform the prelim one evening and then the next morning do the semifinal and then that evening do the final. So it's like a really packed 24, 24 hours where it's pretty intense. Talk about wanting to peak on a given day. Like, you want to peak on that semi-final, final day. Exactly. And it's hard to

because you want to peek on that day, but then you don't want to be, you can't rest the day before because you still have to compete and get through. So those two days, I practiced maybe 12, like 12 times in the lead up to the Olympics where initially I just did what I thought was going to work. I didn't really do any kind of recovery techniques. I wanted to try it as is. no, like just doing it basically just me and a normal day of eating. So then when we took that and what the data was the next day and how I felt and how I performed. And then we tried it the next time by adding in nutrition recovery. And then we saw what my recovery was based on that. And then after that, we then put in like ice recovery, ice baths as well as my nutrition. And then we put in like

sour cherry juice extract into that. And then we had like massage added. And then we had like leg compressions on certain times, changing my lunch and what I was eating around these things. So we basically, like you would have like a food allergy testing things and you would tick off what you would, what you're allergic to on your way, what was beneficial, what wasn't. We used the whoop data to see how I was going to be best prepared, best recovered for that semi-final, final day, but still doing enough on the prelim day. So we had it so that we had literally down to the minute, what I was going to eat, what I was going to do, when I was going to do it, who was going to help me at what.

what point. And funny enough, I was in the green on the prelim day. And then on the semi-final and final day, I was 97% recovered. Wow. Nailed it. I'm sorry, I hadn't been 97% recovered like after a day of full 10-meter competition in, I don't know how long. But my physio turns off my recovery data during a competition because he doesn't want me to see it. So you didn't actually even know you had 97%? So I did. I didn't. know I had 97% until after the competition I said it was like one of the first things I said I was like gee my of my physio I was like what what what was my recovery this morning and he was like you don't even want to know and I was like oh what was it bad and he was like well how did you feel

I said well I felt great and he was like well it was 97% and I was like oh it's like jeez like it kind of yeah like the fact that we had planned it so meticulously and for it to work out like that it was it was pretty cool well it sounds so meticulous and listening to it and I think it shows what an evolved athlete you are to figure out all those factors and to just nail it when you needed to. Now, would you do the visualization that day right before the competition as well or you don't? Yeah, I mean, when I'm laying in bed every night, I would visualize my competition like every night. I'd lay there and visualize my six dives. I wouldn't do it more than once because if I did it more than once, I'd find myself just doing it and doing it and doing it until I fell

asleep and I'd like to just be in bed, do it once, and then be done with it and get to sleep. And I kind of like do like a body scan to get to sleep usually after that, like a body scan meditation where I end up just falling asleep. Is that where you picture different parts of your body being tired or relaxing? Yeah. And then like, describe what that is. Yeah. So I tend to, I lay in bed on my back usually. And then just until I get to sleep. Then I did basically, I scan from like my feet all the way up my body but like imagine my feet like sinking into my bed so it's like they become really heavy and then like go up my body through my cast my knees my legs like like everything till so you get to your head and then you kind of you know you get to that point

but you kind of just feel like you're like I mean that I don't often get to my head to get to sleep I'm normally asleep within a few minutes um so I do that most nights to get to sleep especially if I'm got like a big event the next day because the you don't want to be thinking about that too much. But then when it comes to my actual visualization in competition, my routine really is I take a sip of water before I get upstairs. Then I go up to the diver or a dive. I'll go up to the first platform. Another diver will dive and then I'll go up to the second one, which is five meters where I'll do a little bit of a warm up in terms of like jumping around and getting myself moving again. And then another dive will go. I go to

seven meter, which is where I do like my visualization. with the shammy of my eyes, I watch myself through the dive. And then I also do a physical run-through of the dive where I practice my arm swing, the jump, the shapes and the positions that I get in into the air. And then at the back of the board, before the diver, before me goes, I do like 10 really, really deep breaths, like with my eyes closed and kind of like really ground myself, like, feel my feet on the floor, like, listen to what's around me, you know, smell the chlorine, like really kind of like bring every sense alive as to what,

like, just to try and really ground myself in that moment. And that reduces my heart rate, calms me down, and really focuses me before I go out and do the actual diet. Now, I imagine you've worn WOOP when you've done dives before. I mean, were you wearing it in the Olympics? Probably not, right, during the competition. We weren't allowed to wear, you're not allowed to wear any kind of technology in the competitions. But I wear it throughout training. And one surprising thing is that I burn way more calories diving than I ever thought I would.

But you don't, I mean, it makes sense because I'm going up so many flights of stairs all the time. So it's like doing a flight of stair, like, I mean, to get to 10 meters, there's like, I mean, I think there's like 50 to 60 steps to get up. So it's like lots of flights of stairs. So then you're going up the stairs and then you're kind of composing yourself and then you're doing like a really big max effort jump and skill. So it's like your heart rate is like kind of going up and down, up and down. And when you're in the pool for an hour and a half, it, it burns some calories. Well, where I was going with this is I'm curious, when you're about to do your dive, do you want your heart rate to be elevated or do you want your heart rate to be low? I think there's, it's whatever you can do to control. I think it'll be different for different people. I am very much someone who likes to just be quite calm and focused and present on what I need to do because it was actually Greg Ligainis who said to me, one of my heroes in diving, he said to me that, um,

fear is just excitement without breathing. So taking that line, when you're like standing on the end of the board and you feel like that adrenaline and you feel like scared and worried and like you don't know what's going to happen, just taking the time for an extra breath to really kind of ground yourself

and give yourself that control over the fear to have like, so you do bring your heart rate down a little bit, I would say, because you don't want to have that like go into almost a panic. You want to be, your heart rate's going to be high anyway. You mean you're standing up 10 meters above the water and all kinds of things can go wrong.

So just being able to bring your heart rate down and focus is important before you do a dive. Yeah, I'm thinking about different, you know, athletes I've talked to about this. You know, you take a professional football player, let's say American football, they'll often say, you know, they kind of want to feel amped up in that moment, right? They want to actually kind of like feel the sweat and the energy and be in it, so to speak. But you talk to a professional golfer, if they're about, to try to make a put, you know, that's to win the tournament. They want their heart rate actually to be as low as possible.

I could see how diving could be either of those, but it makes sense to me that you just want to feel present and feeling control. Yeah, because, you know, it's that moment when the whistle blows for the referee blows his whistle and everything goes silent, you want to be as focused as possible. You don't want to be too, you know, excited and out of it. You don't want to take in what everything's going around you. You want to be as focused and almost like blinkered as possible. because when you start thinking about all the crowd and getting excited,

I can see how, like, in a basketball match or like, like, like you say in a football game, like, you want to be, like, in it, that you can, like, really feed off of that, you know, energy. Yeah. So, whereas with diving, you can feed off the energy to a certain extent, but then you kind of have to, like I say, use it and then breathe and just give that moment of, you know, calm so you're still because you have to be pretty still before you go.

Now, describe the actual act of diving. You talked for a second in the visualization process about seeing actually where you are in each phase of the dive. Is it something that when you actually do the dive, it actually feels from a time standpoint like time slows down a little bit? Or is it over in a blink? I mean, it's 1.6 seconds from when you leave the board to hitting the water, hit the war at 35 miles an hour. So it's quite, it does happen quite quickly. But it does, like you say, it slows. down. Everything goes into slow motion in a weird way because we have to make so many micro adjustments

all the way throughout. Like if we're spinning too fast, too slow, we have to either bring in our shape or fall a wave in our shape. We have to make adjustments. Like if we come out too late, then we have to bring our arms out really straight. So it slows like with air resistance to slow it down. And like every action has an equal opposite reaction. Like all of those things you have to think about to like adjust your body position so quickly. But at the same time, you have to see where you are every time you're spinning. So like a dancer will spot a wall when they're spinning like doing their turns. Yeah. When we're spinning, we spot the water. So every somersault we do, we're counting and we're seeing the water to tell how high we are, how fast we're

spinning. And that's why we have those like sprays in those bubbles that hit the water so we can actually see the surface because sometimes if you look down and that's not there, you just see the bottom of the pool. So you've all of a sudden gone from 10 meters to 15 meters high. So so you're want to be able to see the surface of the water and count those somersaults every time you're going around. And that spatial awareness is what is really key to being able to be as consistent as you can as a diver. I watched a female diver. I don't remember her name, but she went out to the board. And it's almost like she went up to do it and all of a sudden just sort of just kind of jumped in. Like the dive never even almost started. And I was thinking to myself, like how

how could that happen? Yeah, you'd be surprised what can happen with people in competition when they're nervous. Like, for example, there's times when like a hurdle, especially on a springboard, the one that moves, like when they do the hurdle step, like it's so unstable. And I don't think you appreciate or people can appreciate how unstable it is until you've actually stood on one and you're like so off balance. So in training, you can do it all the time. But as soon as you go into a competition and you have the nerves and the adrenaline,

you can wobble and you can fall off of those things pretty quickly. The same with the handstand. You can be as steady as you like in handstand in training and all those things. But then you get to a competition where it's so crucial and you know you can't come down. And then as soon as you start wobbling, you see it less on a platform. But there's still things like, and you have that extra bit of adrenaline. And when you're doing your run-up to the end of the board, you move this much for like an inch further forward. And then all of a sudden your foot slipped off the end.

So there's all of these different things that can happen in competition. And that's why diving is such an on-the-day. sport, as like I'd call it, because you just, there's so many little things that can go wrong at any moment. You can never bet on any one person to win. Do you find that you're competing with yourself or you're competing with the field? And I mean, there's more from a mindset. Oh, you definitely have to be competing with yourself. Like there's, I mean, I'm someone who's very competitive. I like to see what other people are doing, what scores they're getting, because that for me, that's my version of, you know, taking in the energy and knowing what I need to do to get

myself amped up, but then that sense of calm before I go. But, you know, I also at the same side of that, diving is a very individual sport. You can't control what the other person's doing. It's not like tennis. You hit something in a certain way they have to adjust. You have to just do the best that you can, regardless of what anyone else is doing. So essentially, you just focus on yourself. You control the controllables, which is your performance, and then the results look after themselves. Yeah, I wonder, because they often show divers while other people are going and, you know, obviously they're trying to create a little bit of drama as a spectator sport. I wonder how much you're thinking about, you know, what number did that person just get? And I hope it's not

too high or you know what I mean? Some people more than others take that into consideration. I like to watch it because that's the competitiveness in me. Like I see someone do something and I want to do it better. Whereas some people don't want to know. They don't know if they want to know if they're doing well. They don't want to know if they're doing bad. They don't know what wants to know what place they're in. Because for some people, it's just as bad knowing that you need to get a 10 as it is if you know all you need to get is a four. Because sometimes that's worse, knowing that you just have to not fail the dive often makes it so much worse. That's an amazing point. So coming back to recovery for a second, you know, obviously the whoop journey.

has all these different things in it about travel and supplements and what are some of the things that you find that you're you're currently in a testing phase of and you're trying to see if they're they're helping you or hurting you one of the funny things was seeing how much my sleep adjusted in terms of deep sleep when I went away obviously without my son and being like kind of having like one eye open all the time making sure that he was okay versus when I went to competitions. So for me, that was an interesting thing to see when I was, had that and when I didn't. But then also there's. And just to be clear, when you were away, you were sleeping better or worse? Oh, I was sleeping better when I, when I was away. That's what I assumed. I sleep so much,

I sleep so much better when I'm in a bed on my own and when I don't have to, when I know that my son is not in my responsibility realm, if you like. But, you know, it was what was some things that I also tested out, which wasn't necessarily beneficial for me, I found, was a sauna. So for my synchro partner, Mati, he went in saunas where when we go on training camps, there's training camp in Turkey that we went on where they have a sauna. And his recovery always bounced back much better if he had a sauna as opposed to an ice bath, whereas I responded better to ice baths and saunas. So it was like interesting to see that as a difference.

But like you say, in the journal, there are so many different like things that come up whether it's like nutrition recovery, whether you ate well, whether you're experiencing bloating, all those kinds of different things. And right now, I'm on time off since the Olympics. So I haven't really been investigating different things at the moment. I was, that was more my process in before the Olympics, like I say, with the nutrition, with the ice recovery, with massage and seeing how that benefited my recovery. Now, you mentioned obviously your, your swimming partner. What's it like finding a swimming partner in the first place? Because obviously So you guys have to be so in sync.

First and foremost, you kind of have to have someone who, well, you need to have someone that can do as difficult dives as you can. So you have to be able to do the same dives. You have to have a similar technique. And if you have a similar technique, you're doing the same dives. You can very quickly create a partnership that looks similar because what's difficult is if you don't have that many divers that are doing the same dives as you, or if they spin faster than you, or they jump higher than you, or they have a different technique to you.

So Matty, my synchro partner, was very, he's a similar height to me, similar build. We had the same dives. We have the same spin speeds. And you get to a point where all you have to say is one, two, three, go. And then you do your own dive. That's where you want to get to. And that's as technical as it should be. What's funny, done, was Mattie just FaceTimed me.

That was weird. That is weird. I was just like, I was talking about, I was like, oh, my God, he knew I was talking about him. But essentially, that's actually how in sync you guys are. We're like telepathic. But you get to that point where you're standing on the end of the board and you're like, okay, ready, one, two, three, go.

And you are doing the dive. And that's all you need to be thinking about. What did it feel like to win a gold medal? Oh, gosh. It was just this, it was a, I mean, it's been a dream of mine for my whole life. And it's something that I knew I could do, but never knew, never thought I would actually be able to do it. Like I was fully of the, like, I fully knew.

I fully knew that if I didn't win an Olympic gold medal this time round, that it was going to get increasingly more difficult as an older athlete. And I might have had to learn to live with the fact that I was never going to be an Olympic champion. So that sense of elation and that sense of like, as you know, like you see in the movies and it has all these flashbacks of all the things that you come through in your life. It kind of came to that moment. And I remember because of COVID, no one could put the medal on for you. So they give you a medal.

And it was actually Matty who put the gold medal. on me. And I remember putting that medal on me, seeing the flag kind of raise and the national anthem play. And I was, I thought it was going to be a moment that I was going to be able to sing the national anthem from the, you know, at the top of my lungs. And, oh, I just couldn't speak. I was crying. I was a complete mess. And I just, it was just this moment of, like, it was a dream that I felt like I, if, it's kind of level that I thought, if I was over with an Olympic gold medal, somebody could lock me in a dark room for the rest of my life. I'd be happy, like that kind of level of a dream. So it was amazing. It was, yeah,

it was pretty special. And do you find in the aftermath of it, there's any psychological letup, or is it now just you've had the taste and you want to figure out how you can do it again? Or you must have just filled with gratitude? Like, what's the emotional roller coaster when you've hit that level of just locked me in a dark room because I've won? It's all over the place. Honestly, like I've had such a different experience after each Olympics. Like 2008, I was young and I was ready to get back into it right away. In 2012, I didn't really look past those Olympics. I'd won a bronze medal and the low after that was like incredibly low.

Like I was like that high and then all of a sudden everything was back to normal and I was like, oh, like this is like what next. And then in 2016, I did well in the synchro with a medal and then in the individual I bombed out and had the worst competition of my life and I felt so incredibly low at the Olympics, that I had the fight to come back after that and go towards the next one without any completely blinkered. And then after Tokyo to have achieved my ultimate dream, which was to win an Olympic gold, and then I got another medal in the individual, I was, it's just been, to be honest, I haven't really stopped since the Olympics. I think there was the sense of gratitude,

the sense of appreciation for all the people around me, looking back on how hard I've worked throughout the whole thing, all of the people that supported me. And, you know, I, like I say, after that Olympic gold medal, it was the first time I woke up with a sense of peace. I've done it. Like, everything that I've ever dreamed of achieving in my sport, I have now achieved. And it was that first, like, it's weird because I almost beforehand kind of almost felt a bit like a fraud, like, of this successful athlete, but had won worlds in Europeans and Commonwealths and World Cup, but never the Olympic gold medal. So, like, that to me, like, to win the Olympic gold medal is like, I remember looking at people that had won Olympic gold medals and, like,

thinking that they are superheroes. And there's these people that are like, oh, my gosh. And now, like, I'm one. I'm like, what the hell? Like this, wait, what? How has this happened? Like, to me. And it's just one of these, like you say, it was an emotional role. coaster that has led me through all kinds of different things. And I think it was like, it was Robbie, my son, when I called him after him, I'd won the second medal. And he was just, he just said to me, when are you coming home, Papa? And I was like, you know what? That's what matters, you know, like, you know, he doesn't care that I've won an Olympic medal. He just wants me to be home. Well, you described that very beautifully. And it's also just a fascinating

lens into what it means to be an Olympian and also just how psychologically hard it is and tormenting in a way. I mean, here you are winning all these medals before you won your gold medal, world championships, best in your sport. And in the back of your mind, you feel, you still felt like a little bit of a fraud because you hadn't won a gold medal yet. And that was your dream since you were nine years old. I mean, that's, you know, that's pretty crazy too. Like, that's, That's like an intense, an intense, intense level of commitment and drive towards a singular thing. And so I'm not surprised at all that you got it. But there's so many people, I think, who underestimate just the level of intensity that that requires from a commitment standpoint.

I mean, it's been my life for as long as I can remember. Like, you know, it's not a job that you can just leave at the office. it's a it's a lifestyle and you have to be ready to give up everything at all costs to achieve those goals and at times like when it's really tough like after rio i was like why am i doing this why am i putting myself through this like almost like torture like you i found myself like it was 20 20 was the first time where i didn't experience this but all the previous olympics i was so excited and worked so hard for these Olympic Games and put so much pressure on myself that it was almost like a torturous experience to actually do the Olympic Games because you don't want to mess it up

because you know you've only got one in like one chance in every four years. So it was this time in 2020 where I was like, I'm not going to torture myself through this experience. Like I it was I guess this comes with an experience, but you have to remember that you are more like every person is more than just an athlete. An athlete isn't just what defines you. You can't define yourself by how well you do in a competition. You are more than your sport and your friends and your family are what's really important. And when you kind of get to that feeling of, you know, what, I'm just going to be here because I want to enjoy it and I want to do my best. And take all of that pressure that you put on yourself off of you, that's when you can really fly. And until you get

to that point in your career where you can really see that and have that perspective, it's, that's the only time that you'll be able to get to your fullest potential. I think that's right. I I think the pressure is probably what builds a lot of the discipline, though, early in a career. Absolutely. Just the enormous sacrifice that you made to become a gold medalist that came from the intense pressure that you put on yourself to be one. Winning it, it feels like in listening to you, came from allowing yourself to be relieved of that pressure.

Yeah, it was like almost I realized in Tokyo, like I almost gave myself permission. okay like now you can do it now okay now okay you put yourself through enough torture now you can go and win it and it was like it was weird like I woke up that day and it was like I spoke to matting my synchro partner it was like we both just knew that it was going to happen that day it was like we found this sense of flow that was like it was just it was just like it was weird like even my husband said like he just knew we were going to win like he had I mean he said he did done good karma and he was giving 20 $20 to like whoever like the homeless people outside the store and he was like doing whatever he could to get as much good

calm as part. And I was just like, and he went and bought a bottle of champagne like before because he knew that it was like he just, everyone around me. It was just like everything kind of came together in this, this thing that we were able to do it. It was really surreal. Where do you feel like things are headed for you next? What are you thinking about today? Yeah, like, well, today. I see your father. Yeah, exactly. I mean, first of the foremost, the father. but then, you know, I'm taking a bit of a break because, you know, I've, again, 20 years of diving can do play havoc on your body. So I'm planning on, you know, taking the rest of this year off and then starting up again in January and seeing where I'm at, seeing what's what, like where

I want to go, which events I want to focus on. Is it just synchro, the individual, the springboard, do I want to carry on at all? So there's all of these different things that I have to think about. But I just wanted to like give myself this time now to be able to just try and have a bit of a, well, normal-ish life. Will you focus on your knitting at all? Oh, gosh. This is a very popular topic in British tablets. Yeah. I mean, my dream is to become like a knitwear designer and have my own own knitwear range. So we'll see. I think by the way, I think you could do that if you wanted to. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm hoping on it and I'm planning on it that hopefully maybe by the end of the year I'll have like a knit range that people can create their own clothes with videos and tips and tricks

from me. But we'll see. If you want to start a knitting business, I'll become your first investor. Okay, here we go. Now we're talking. So knitting, that was something, when did you pick that up? So I started knitting at the beginning of March last year. So just before everything went into lockdown, I, my coach, like I'm someone who's always on the go and she wanted me to find something where I could just sit still and not be running around and doing things in the evenings because I'm not someone who just sits in front of a TV. So it was actually my husband who suggested that I'd start to like knit squares, like just like do little, just to have like a therapeutic thing because he said that like my

husband works in the film industry and that people in, you know, like producers or actors when they're waiting for their time on set, they just sit and knit. So I was, okay, I'll try that. And at first, I was absolutely awful at it. But then, you know, the YouTube University helped me learn how to knit. And from then on, I just became completely obsessed with it. And the fact that I can make my own clothes, make clothes my son, my husband, and make gifts for other people.

I just, yeah, I just love the whole process of it. Well, it is a very therapeutic, I imagine, hobby for you. And it's just active enough to kind of scratch an itch while still. being mostly recovery oriented. Yeah, exactly. I mean, especially during the COVID Olympics where you can't go outside of the village, you can't do anything. You're not allowed to mix with the countries. You can't go around and roam and explore the village. So we're very much just stuck in our rooms. And for me, knitting was like a great way to just stop me from overthinking. There was no time to overthink anything. Who or what are influences for you when you think about success and

performance, you know, competing at a world-class level. What do you turn to? It's a good question. I mean, Greg Laganus has always been like someone who I've spoken to a lot and actually looked up to. And, you know, I spoke to him a lot after my disappointment in 2016. And he was really someone who helped me come out the other side of that. But then also my coach, Jane Figuero, she coached two Russian female springboard divers to Olympic gold in Sydney in 2000. So I've also spoken to them quite a lot. And I just have like a really good team around me who has experienced the highs of all highs and then the loads of all lows and been able to like deal with coming out of both ends of that because each one has its own unique

challenges. And I think being able to deal with the success and the lows and being able to still come out of the other side. I think, you know, I think resilience is the big thing that you learn from people that have been through it. Look, you've got an amazing story. Tommy, Tom, and I think you're an amazing ambassador for diving in the Olympics and just sports in general. I know a lot of people look up to you, and it's just been a pleasure getting to talk to you and learn more about your career and your life. And thrilled to have you on Whoop, by the way, you know, it's very cool for me to get to meet and interact with people who are world class and are able to use our technology in such a positive way. So very

grateful to have you on Whoop. No, honestly, thank you. I mean, like, Whoop is like, changed so much of the way that I've been able to train and so much, it's informed so much of our training in the buildups to the Olympics. And honestly, like, without it, it's like training blind. We don't have the resource and the information, especially in a sport like diving. It's just, it's so under research. So to be able to have some little insight into what our body is doing has helped massively. So thank you. Thanks to Tom for coming on the WooP podcast. Reminders, you can use the code will, W-I-L-L, to get 15% sent off a WOOP membership. Check us out on social at Woop at Will Ahmed. And if you like the

Wooop podcast, please be sure to leave us a review, a comment, uh, and subscribe. That's going to help other people find this podcast and help us get better at it. All right, folks, stay healthy and stay in the green. Thank you.