• Archery Why does South Korea always win?

  • Triathlon Kristian Blummenfelt, the Viking bull who loves wild things

Tom Daley

attracted the attention of the press for his precociousness and his talent at just 14 years old. This Monday, in his fourth Games, the English diver finally hung his first Olympic gold, along with Matty Lee on the platform from 10 meters of Tokyo-2020. But beyond sports, his figure is known worldwide for his visibility and LGTB activism. That is why as soon as he won the medal he wanted to send a message to the group: "I hope that any young LGTB can see that no matter how lonely you feel now, you are not, you can achieve anything."

"I am proud to say that I am gay and Olympic champion," Daley began his speech after winning the gold medal. The British athlete, who came to recognize that when he was younger he felt alone because of his sexual orientation, said that "being an Olympic champion now shows that you can do anything." The message he wanted to convey was not to recognize his sexual orientation, since he had made it public 8 years ago, but to send forces to the group and that the youngest did not feel what he felt in his youth.

At the end of 2013, at the age of 19 but already with two Olympic Games behind him, Tom Daley decided to take that step and record a video that he posted on YouTube to share a story with his fans about his personal life, with the title " Something I want to say ", on his bed next to a pillow in the British colors.

"When the spring of this year arrived, my life changed when I met someone who made me feel happy and that someone is a man," he explained in that recording, with which he wanted to respond to "rumors and speculations" about his sexual orientation.

Just weeks after the video, over Christmas, he joked with his family about the media coverage and posed with one of his gifts, a rainbow-colored apron and the message "Gay Icon."

See this post on Instagram

At the beginning of 2014, the identity of the man he alluded to in the video was revealed and it was none other than American screenwriter

Dustin Lance Black

, twenty years older than Tom and awarded an Oscar in 2009 for the script of the biopic LGBT activist

Harvey Milk

who directed

Gus Van Sant

and starred

Sean Penn

.

Tom Daley was chosen "sexiest man in the world" by Attitude magazine then for two years in a row (2013 and 2014) and in an interview in that publication he explained on the cover that he hoped that "the video could help other people" and that he wanted "marry and have children."

The couple, who shared their life between the United States and England, attracted the attention of the media and both were sharing different aspects of their daily lives through the media and social networks.

In 2017 they got married at Bovey Castle, in the county of Devon, where the diver is originally from.

A year later they were parents to little Robbie, named after Tom's father, who passed away from cancer in 2011.

INFLUENCER AND ACTIVIST

Inspired largely by the work of Dustin Lance Black as an LGTB activist, Tom Daley has joined various causes in favor of visibility over the years.

He suffered bullying in his school years and has participated in campaigns against homophobia.

It has also encouraged greater LGBT visibility in sport.

In 2018, when he won gold at the Commonwealth Games, he called on commonwealth countries for respect and an end to laws criminalizing homosexuality.

"I feel very fortunate to be able to be who I am openly and without worry. I hope that one day all athletes from the Commonwealth countries can be free to compete also by being openly the people that they are," he wrote on Twitter.

With more than 2,100,000 'followers' on Instagram and almost 900,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, his every gesture acquires great impact.

In parallel to his extra-sports media exposure, Tom Daley has managed to build a successful career, in which three golds in World Cups and five in Europeans now has three Olympic medals, two bronze (London-2012 and Rio-2016) and one, the most important of all his life, the gold of Tokyo-2020.

At the 2008 Beijing Games in which Tom Daley made his Olympic debut, Australian diver

Matthew Mitcham

won the title on the platform from 10 meters.

She celebrated then by going to the stands to see her boyfriend.

In times of a pandemic, Tom had to settle for a video conference with her husband on a screen at the Tokyo Aquatic Center.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • sports

  • Spain Olympics

Tokyo GamesA Caribbean island, the angles of a stroke and a slope in Pontevedra: the secrets for Tokyo by Javi Gómez Noya

Tokyo OlympicsPablo Carreño - Tennys Sandgreen, live

Tokyo Olympics Richard Carapaz achieves historic gold for Ecuador

See links of interest

  • Last News

  • Tokyo 2021

  • 2021 business calendar

  • Home THE WORLD TODAY

  • Master investigative journalism

  • South Korea - Spain, live

  • Wang Qiang - Garbiñe Muguruza, live

  • Sara Sorribes - Fiona Ferro, live

  • John Millmam - Alejandro Davidovich, live

  • Iga Swiatek - Paula Badosa, live