Tom Daley has revealed his upset that son Robbie, two, won’t be able to watch him compete at the 2021 Olympic Games.
The diver, 26, will travel to Tokyo for the event in June, but Covid restrictions mean that husband Dustin Lance Black, 46, and their son won’t be able to join him – as no spectators from outside Japan will be allowed to watch the games.
Speaking to Man About Town magazine, alongside a striking photoshoot, the father-of-one expressed his disappointment as he fears this Olympics could be his last.
Speaking out: Tom Daley has revealed his upset that son Robbie, two, won’t be able to watch him compete at the 2021 Olympic Games
Tom mused: ‘I’d love for my son to be able to watch me at the Olympics so it’s bittersweet because you never know if you’re going to get to do another Olympics.
‘It’s one of those things that you never take for granted that it could be your last one… I mean, of course he’ll be watching on TV if the timezones work so he might have some memories around it.’
Originally due to take place in July last year, the event was postponed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Tom admitted this came with some silver linings.
Upsetting: Speaking to Man About Town magazine, alongside a striking photoshoot, the father-of-one expressed his disappointment as he fears this Olympics could be his last
Missing out: The diver, 26, will travel to Tokyo for the sporting event in June, but Covid restrictions mean that husband Dustin Lance Black, 46, and their son won’t be able to join him
He explained: ‘It had its challenges but I’m quite an optimistic person so I just felt lucky. I would have been travelling here, there, and everywhere for competitions, training camps and I would have missed so much of Robbie’s development.
‘I’ve got to spend so much more time with my family in one place so I’m very thankful for that, but at the same time there’s lots of other positives in terms of a massive sense of perspective and knowing that things can change at any time so you realise what matters most. I don’t have the same pressure that I put on myself.’
Tom added that he is approaching this year’s games with a different mindset.
The athlete started diving at the age of seven and was just 14 when he first competed for the UK at the Beijing Olympics where he failed to win a medal.
Last chance? Tom said, ‘I’d love for my son to be able to watch me at the Olympics so it’s bittersweet because you never know if you’re going to get to do another Olympics’
At 18 he became pretty much the poster boy for the London Games, where he went on to win a bronze medal in the 10m Men’s Platform dive under gargantuan pressure from the home crowd and while still in mourning for the loss of his beloved father Rob from a brain tumour the year before.
Speaking about his past experiences training for the games, Tom said: ‘That’s kind of what it was like for me in 2016, I stopped drinking completely for two years before, I sacrificed so much, I was making sure that I did every single thing to the letter, to the point where it sucked out a lot of the enjoyment, it was almost like diving was the one and only thing in my life and it felt like it defined me.
‘Whereas now, as a parent and having gone through a global pandemic, I have a little more perspective and am realising why I actually liked doing it in the first place.
‘And regardless of what happens in the competition in Tokyo, I know I can go home to my husband and my son and be happy and they’re not going to care how I do so I can actually just go and enjoy it, which normally means you dive better because you don’t have that anxiety.’
Seeing positives: Originally due to take place in July last year, the event was postponed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Tom admitted this came with some silver linings
Robbie was born in June 2018 via an American surrogate and his fathers have always been open about wanting a large family and ensuring their son has siblings.
Dustin previously admitted he and Tom want to have a large family because they have both lost loved ones quite early in their adult lives.
He said: ‘We looked at many different options at the beginning. But I think it became clear we wanted a biological connection to our first born.
‘Who knows where we are going to go from here! It takes 11 to make up a full football team right? Tom has lost his father, I had lost my mom and brother and you start to yearn for that connection that goes from your past to your future, and surrogacy was one of the ways we could do it.
‘We decided to go to America after we did our research.’
He explained: ‘I just felt lucky. I would have been travelling here, there, and everywhere for competitions, training camps and I would have missed so much of Robbie’s development’
Tom’s interview comes as Tokyo Olympics officials face a desperate battle to ensure the highly-antipated event still goes ahead in July amid a surge of coronavirus cases in Japan – which has resulted in a state of emergency being declared, just three months before the games begin.
A joint statement from the IOC, IPC and Japanese government has set out a series of measures to combat safety concerns, including testing athletes every day.
Organisers insisted it wanted to ‘place the highest priority on safety for the sake of all participants, including the athletes, and the Japanese public who will be playing host to the Games’.
The statement said that all athletes taking part in the games – including those in close proximity with them – will receive a Covid test daily ‘to minimise the risk of undetected positive cases that could transmit the virus’.
Tom said of his perspective now: ‘Whereas now, as a parent and having gone through a global pandemic, I have a little more perspective and am realising why I actually liked doing it’
Other measures will include athletes taking two tests before flying to Japan, while they will be urged to keep a one-metre distance from games participants who have already been in the country for 14 days, as well as residents.
No spectators from outside Japan will be allowed to watch the games this summer, which will make for a very different event as athletes compete in their bubbles – but a decision to allow local fans has been delayed until June.
Officials said they were looking into ‘the evolving situation with the domestic infections status involving new strains’ and would consult with the Japanese government concerning stadium capacity at a later date.
However, mounting concerns around the situation in Japan – which reported nearly 5,000 cases on Tuesday, with 63 deaths – has led to fears that the event could be scrapped altogether.
This month, politician Toshihiro Nikai claimed cancellation could not be ruled out if infections continued to soar.
‘If it seems impossible [to host the Olympics] any more, then we have to stop it, decisively,’ said Nikai, the secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party.
When asked if cancelling the games was an option, he said: ‘Of course’, adding: ‘If the Olympics were to spread infection, then what are the Olympics for?’
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Tom revealed: ‘Regardless of what happens in the competition in Tokyo, I know I can go home to my husband and my son and be happy and they’re not going to care how I do’