Olympic diver Tom Daley talked to London 2012 about his diving before he went to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
I’m Tom Daley, 14 years old, and I’m a diver and I come from Plymouth.
When you get onto the board you do feel quite nervous if you haven’t been up there for a while, and it is very high when you get up there. I still get quite scared now getting up onto the high board.
Looking over the edge is quite freaky, but then you’ve got to try and cool it down, you’ve done it before and you visualise it in your head and by the time you are stood on the end of the board you just go and the motions come with you.
I’ve hit my head on the poolside twice. Once on my forehead by just doing a forward dive and hitting on the poolside as I’ve gone in, and once doing a backward dive I hit my head, kind of did a back flip, but then landed on the poolside and then went in the water.
On my days off I go with my friends to the cinema. Spend time with my family. It’s good to spend time with them when I have days off.
Tanni Gray-Thompson, Sir Steve Redgrave, they’ve all been a major part in my career by giving me mentoring support, and also my Dad has been very supportive, taking me to every training session.
There’s lots of things that keep me going and keep me motivated in diving, and keep me wanting to go to the Olympics.
The Games in London 2012 are really exciting for me. I can’t wait to see if I qualify to get to those Olympics, because it will be the most amazing Olympics for any British person to go out there and represent your own country for one thing, and then represent it in front of your home crowd so that everyone will be there for the support.
Ultimately it would be really good if I could win the gold in front of the home crowd.
