British Olympic diver Tom Daley joined Baker Machado on Between Bells to discuss his new memoir, "Coming Up For Air," now available in the U.S. Daley knit his way through the conversation while the two chatted about the important lessons from his decorated diving career that he details in the book and got candid about the impact that being a public athlete has on mental health. Daly also discussed whether or not he plans on retiring. "I decided with my coach we're going to take a year out and just have time to just relax and unwind and be a bit more normal and not have to train every single day," he said. "But it's now just being able to make those decisions, I don't know what's gonna be next. I don't know if knitting is just gonna be for me from here on out. I'm just gonna sit and knit."

Between Bells

Olympian Tom Daley Knits His Way Through a Chat About His New Memoir 

Between the Baker Machado in New York. A key moment from the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo was watching diver Tom Daley finally win goal. However, another key moment that especially stood out was also watching diver Tom Daley Knit in between events. But what goes through the mind of one of Britain's most decorated divers? Well lay it all out in his new U. S. Debut in his new memoir coming up for air. The book shows fans exactly what the Olympian goes through in his life beyond the pool and joining us now in studio is olympic gold medal diver. Mr Tom Daley tom good to have you here. Thank you so much for joining us first up. Okay, so this interview we're gonna be talking about a bunch of things, but you know how big of a fan you are of knitting because we watched you through the whole olympics do this, we're going to try to do this and you're gonna teach me how to do that. Yeah, Okay, well it's it can be quite complex which by the way, I want to tell our viewers we gave you like a 10 minute heads up to do this and you already basically started this. Yeah, I started it started a bit for you in a bit for me, but like, I mean basically to show you and people at home are gonna be able to see this but to go to knit you see that last, that stitch there that's on the closest to the end of your you're going to put your you need a needle through it and then your working yarn, which is the one that's attached to the ball, you wrap around, right. And then once you've wrapped it around, you pull it to the front of your work and then slide it off. Wait, hold on. Did I already mess this up already? Which one do I want this one? That one, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're gonna put this needle this needle through that like that. And then I twist, wrap it around the back of it like that once you've wrapped it around the back and I was so confident going in like that and then you just pull it to the front of your work. Oh, and then go back and put it off. So where did this, where did this knitting interest come from? How did you find an interesting to be honest with me? And it was at the very start of the pandemic, I started to knit and it was because I was, I was always struggling to do something where I could sit still and not be doing something. I'm always someone that's on the go, always moving around, always doing something. So my coach said you need to find something where you can rest and recover. And then it was my husband who said to me, why don't you try knitting people on film sets knit squares all the time. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna knit. And I feel like it's one of those things, it's in my personality. If I try something, I'm just going for it. There's no, I can't do anything. Halfheartedly. I have to go all the way we saw you getting so many different things. Were you getting requests from your teammates to make you stuff? I have the longest list of requests to make the most common thing that people ask you to make. I mean, I, I started off with the olympics, making a dog jumper and I also made that olympic jumper. So I made a couple of things. So dog jumpers are always high up on the list, right? Whenever there's like a newborn baby in someone's family, they want some cardigans or jumpers. There's always something that somebody once made. And have you thought about maybe doing this as like a side hustle like as a business down the road? Like, like have like an official like line and like a whole like, you know, I do have a little knitting kit situation going on. It was made with love. It's on like by tom Daley dot com and you can get knitting kits where you get the, the yarn and the needles and the pattern and everything you need in order to make your own stuff that I've designed. So let's talk about the book, your new book coming up for air Now. Finally available here in the United States. What made you decide that you wanted to sort of reveal more about yourself and talk about these things in this book, You know, writing a book, the process of it is like really quite nostalgic and you go back and You know, I wrote diaries from you know the Beijing 2008 Olympics all the way back when I was 14 years old. So I it was really interesting to actually read back that stuff and hear my voice in it and how much I've matured as an athlete. But essentially the book goes into each chapter is a lesson that I've learned in my diving career in my life, whether that be courage or resilience, optimism, kindness, all of those kinds of things and you know, because I was watching earlier when you're talking about the impacts on mental health for athletes and student athletes in particular and I think people are always held in such high standards nowadays because of social media and because of expectation and all of those pressures and you know, one thing that I had to learn in my diving career early on was to be kind to yourself if you make a mistake and don't hold yourself to such high standards because often like for me from my experience, whenever I made a mistake, whenever I made a mistake in the past, I used to really beat myself up about it because I'm a perfectionist but actually allowing yourself to make mistakes and learning from them is how and being kind to yourself when you do make those mistakes, allows you to grow as a person and as an athlete because if you worry so much about making mistakes, that's that's sometimes where I found that I've become so worried about making mistakes. I don't try anything new and then you get stuck in a rut. So that's something that I found and I'm glad you mentioned that cause I want to read a section that you write in your book about this. You say like physical health, no one is infallible from suffering from mental health setbacks. I was no different than anyone else. I mean, we saw what happened at the most recent olympic games with gymnasts and so many other people as well, do you almost like feel great when athletes start talking about this because I feel like it's obviously think all of us struggle with, but nobody comes out and discusses athletes struggle with it all the time. And you know, everybody has their own struggles with mental health no matter how big or small and you know, when Simone biles was able to speak out about it and you know, she suffered from the twist ease, which is something that I suffered quite heavily with as well in 2012, it's actually why I opened my book with was the similar situation that I was in in London 2012 and you know, it's it's something that especially I feel like as men you're also almost like conditioned to not talk about your mental health and not talk about total body dysmorphia and eating disorders and things because you don't want to burden other people and you feel like you're, you know, it's not what society the norms are or at least we're trying to look strong. Exactly. And that's where like toxic masculinity is such a scary thing because it puts people into boxes and doesn't allow people to actually be themselves and get to the point where they're able to, you know, overcome their mental health. I want to talk about when you finally won gold because for a lot of us who are big fans of yours and I'm one of them when you finally won gold. That was such an amazing moment. And I want to talk about what you read, what you write in the book, you said I was ready to win and then step away from diving. I knew that I was only, I only had a certain amount of time left in the sport and I wanted to go out on a high. I thought that real would be my last time, my time to shine brightly and then to retire gracefully. I mean you ended up leaving with bronze at that particular time, but then you want gold in Tokyo what was sort of that moment like when you finally got it, especially when you had already discussed in your brain, okay if I don't get this, it's done. it's you know, it was really overwhelming actually because I work for, you know, I died 20 years, 20 years is a long time from work for something and keep going for it. So I essentially, you know, and the olympics is such a high pressure situation, it happens once every four years and if you don't get it right in that four year period then you have to wait a whole another four years. So that olympics when it finally happened and finally got that gold medal, It was like, you know, in the movies when you see your whole life flash before your eyes and all the good, the highs and the lowest, yeah, I had that moment and it was so surreal to have finally done it. And you know, I just felt so after 2016 I was at my all time low in my sport and I really thought I that was gonna be my time to win an Olympic gold medal. And it was after that competition when I was really distraught that my husband said to me, maybe this isn't your time to win an olympic gold medal because maybe your future child is meant to see you win an olympic gold medal and you know, in 2020 our son was three years old and he was able to actually watch me win an olympic gold medal, which is pretty special as a parent explained what that's like when you have your kid went, oh my God, it's, I think being a parent has changed everything for me and I think I owe everything that I've achieved since Robbie was born to him because at the end of the day, it's just shifted my priorities and my perspectives and everything in order to, I really appreciate what matters most and that's that your friends and family are happy and healthy and that you're doing the best that you can and, you know, going into a competition knowing that regardless of what happens, that you're going to go home to a family that loves and supports you, no matter what, that just takes so much pressure You get that you can just take the pressure off yourself, then you can go and actually enjoy it. So what have you decided whether or not you're officially retired? I haven't, are you, are you bet that's the hardest decision to sort of make or are you enjoying this moment being like, I can still do this or I can, I can go whenever I so choose. You know, I made a few changes going into the Olympics about, you know, being kinder to myself and giving myself a little bit more slack and, you know, because I'm getting older as a diver in 28 on Saturday. So yeah, that's right, happy early birthday. Um so for me it was like before the olympics, I decided with my coach, we're going to take a year out and just have time to just relax and unwind and be a bit more normal and not have to train every single day, but it's now just being able to, you know, make those decisions like, I don't know what's gonna be next. I don't know if, you know, knitting is just gonna be for me from here on out, I'm just gonna sit and knit. I mean, would you be okay with that? Because I think a lot of athletes, as as you mentioned, they've done this for their whole, entire lives. They don't know what else to do afterwards is the idea of maybe just saying, look, I'm done with this and I'm totally okay with that. Is that something that has entered your mind? You know, it's always a struggle when you go into something new and it's something changes and something is different and you know, at a certain point I have to stop diving at some point I can't be doing it until, you know, 60 years old. So I just have like I've done so much in the sport that I like, I feel like the olympics and winning a gold medal was the last thing I really wanted to do. But at the end of the day, I do love it. I love doing it. I love the process. I love the routine of it. I love all my teammates. So you know, it'll be a tough decision whenever I do decide to hang up the trunks or the speedo. Yeah exactly. Pride month is next month here in the US. We're asking a lot of influential LGBT people what pride month means to them. What does it mean to you? You know I think lots of people now especially of my generation and younger see it as an opportunity to party and to have a good time and all that kind of stuff. And I think for me it's about really understanding the meaning of it and be really being able to go back and actually understand why pride is important and why it still continues to be important and the history of you know all of the people that came before us so that we are able to now live the life that we do because you know, you know just over 50 years ago in the U. K. It was criminalized still to be gay. So and you know even sooner in more recent in history in the US. So it's just being able to really understand and realize the importance of pride and not to take it for granted. Absolutely. Or by the way before we end this we show everybody how we've done. I've gotten this far. I think I've got a little bit okay so what can we maybe make out of this could be, I mean I could start making patches. I mean I literally put on a little strip. I mean look at this. I mean, we could probably make up the difference between the two of you. Can make a dog scar. Yes. You have a dog script and I think I have like a spoon holder over here. Yeah. Olympic gold medal diver Tom Daley, His new memoir coming up for air available today here in the United States. Tom is such a pleasure. Thank you so very much for joining us.