Tom Daley and his diving partner upset the powerful Chinese in synchronized diving at the Tokyo Olympics. And guess what the toast of Great Britain does with his spare time?
He knits. He channels all his extra energy into his craft. And some days, he even multi-tasks. Take his day Sunday. Daley showed up to watch the women’s competition for the three-meter springboard. And while his friends competed, Daley sat in the stands and knitted.
The official account for the Tokyo Olympics shared a photo of Daley doing his knitting thing. Meanwhile, two Chinese divers took the gold and silver medals, while Krysta Palmer of the United States earned bronze.
Guess What Daley Did to Protect his Tokyo Olympics Gold
Daley and his partner, Matty Lee, won the gold medal for platform synchronized diving last Monday. He competes again, Aug. 6. That’s a lot of time between events. So Daley needs to keep busy.
His first project was to knit a holder for his hard-earned gold. And he showed off his newest creation on his Instagram page that he devotes to knitting. Yes, there really is such a page. The gold medal pouch features the Union Jack on one side. It has the Japanese flag on the other. There’s no way for Daley to confuse his Tokyo Olympics medals with other awards he’s won throughout his career.
In the Instagram video clip, Daley said: ‘Learning to knit and crochet has helped me so much through these Olympics and we won GOLD yesterday I made a little medal case too!’ He captioned the video ‘THANK YOU TO ALL MY FELLOW STITCHERS!”
Daley is 27. The British public first fell in love with him at the 2012 Olympics in London. That’s when he was a precocious 14-year-old winning a bronze medal. He also won a bronze in 2016 at the Rio Games. The Tokyo Olympics is where he won his first gold.
He said in interviews that he first brought his knitting to Tokyo for a test event at the new Olympic venue. Why waste time waiting between dives when you can knit?
‘”Sometimes there’s 45 minutes in between each dive,” Daley said. “So I’d sit there and knit and just take my mind off the competition completely. I’m obsessed!’
Daley also said he’s planning to knit another, larger memento, to remember his time at the Tokyo Olympics. It’ll be more than a gold medal pouch. Maybe a jumper? He said he wanted to create something “so I can look back in 20 years and be like ‘I made that at the Olympics’ how cool is that?’
Daley completed a similar project earlier in the year, knitting a rainbow-colored jumper. He auctioned it off and donated the proceeds to a brain tumor-related charity. Daley’s dad died of a tumor when he was only 40. That was back in 2011, a year before Tom made his first Olympic team. He’d be proud of his son.