Tom Daley units sights on Paris Olympics after confirming diving comeback | Tom Daley

The Olympic diving champion Tom Daley has mentioned he’ll return to the pool to focus on a spot at Paris 2024.

Daley, now 29, received Olympic gold alongside Matty Lee within the males’s 10-metre synchronised competitors on the Tokyo Video games in 2020, his fourth Olympics. The three-time world champion has taken two years out since then, saying he had “in principle retired”, however in a brand new YouTube video he mentioned a current journey to Colorado Springs within the US had reignited his aggressive spirit with a 12 months to go till Paris.

Daley and his husband, Dustin Lance Black, travelled to Colorado for the delivery of their second son, Phoenix, in March, and Daley mentioned he had not realised its standing as an Olympic metropolis – it’s dwelling to the US Olympic and Paralympic coaching centre – till they arrived. He took his eldest son, Robbie, to the museum there and mentioned he felt impressed to try a return.

“Robbie mentioned to me: ‘Papa, I need to see you dive within the Olympics’,” Daley mentioned in a video publish. “It has lit a brand new flame in me to see the place this goes. I don’t know the place that is going to go, I don’t know if that is going to be a very foolish concept of me getting again within the pool or a chance for me to do that recreationally and have a little bit of enjoyable with none stress, or if my physique goes to have the ability to get again on a diving board and dive half-decently.

“I don’t know what that’s going to appear to be. Paris 2024 is unquestionably a purpose. I don’t know if it’s going to be doable however you by no means say by no means.”

He determined to not compete on the Commonwealth Video games final 12 months with the intention to spend extra time along with his husband and first son, who was born in 2018 through a surrogate.

Daley began diving on the age of seven and made his Olympic debut for Nice Britain when he was 14. He got here out as homosexual in a YouTube video in 2013 and has since change into an outspoken advocate of LGBTQ+ rights.

His movie Tom Daley: Unlawful to Be Me, which was proven on the BBC final August, highlighted homophobia in sport and the discrimination and hazard confronted by LGBT+ athletes in some Commonwealth nations. “LGBT+ athletes have to be secure and really feel comfy being their genuine selves with out concern of persecution or loss of life,” he mentioned on the time.

He took up knitting and crochet throughout the pandemic, and has now attracted 1.2 million followers to his Instagram account @madewithlovebytomdaley, the place he posts photographs of his creations. In a Guardian interview, he mentioned: “Like most issues in my life I’ve change into very dedicated to it.”

PA Media contributed to this report