I found Tom Daley's new documentary huncomfortable – but it's a vital watch

Metro

2 days ago

There's an unbelievable moment of contrast at the start of Tom Daley's new Discovery+ documentary.
Titled '1.6 Seconds,' which is the time it takes for an Olympic diver to hit the water from the 10m board, the feature-length project gives us a glimpse into Tom's early childhood in the form of grainy home videos shot by his father, Robert.
After we learn that Tom was a 'nightmare kid' on competition trips because he often felt homesick, we see this tiny little child soaring through the air and disappearing beneath the surface of the water in a series of amazing clips.
It's hard to believe someone who looks so superhuman could be vulnerable to something as mundane as homesickness.
Dubbed by his early coach Andy Banks as 'something special', it quickly becomes apparent that this Plymouth boy cannot stop winning competitions.
To combat this, his coaches move him up through the age groups in a bid to teach him a lesson, only for him to go on and win world championship after world championship.
The segment is bookended by a video clip in which Tom stands alongside his diving competitors. Five places down, a behemoth of an athlete with biceps the size of Tom's torso steps forward to receive applause. This is who he was up against, and this is who he was beating.
It's the type of moment that the public has come to expect from the odds-defying champion.
Thanks in part to his effervescence and receptiveness to total strangers, like me, Tom has allowed everything from cameras and journalists to brands into his life with very little opposition.
However, moving beyond his diving prowess, the new documentary seeks to explain how a five-time Olympic champion struggled throughout his early life.
Despite representing Team GB at the 2008 Olympics at the age of just 13, we see how Tom was, bizarrely, subject to some horrific bullying when he returned to his school from Beijing.
If being bullied wasn't hard enough, the teenager then had to constantly explain to news sites and journalists who were camped with cameras outside his school what he was going through.
Directed by Vaughan Sivell, the doc does an excellent job of providing a meditation on what the public does to young sports stars who are just breaking through.
It's honestly heartbreaking at times to see how our obsession with sportspeople can shroud and cloak a person's life.
Tom describes how 'abusive' his relationship was with the media during the devastating loss of his father, who pictured him at the funeral when he specifically asked not to be.
One uncomfortable segment shows viewers how Tom was never truly able to stop and grieve the loss of his father. He immediately went back to doing interviews and practising diving to distract himself from the emotional turmoil.
This is doubled by a troubling part where Tom developed body dysmorphia after being told that he was 'fat' before the 2012 Olympics.
He states: 'I took some drastic measures to make sure the food was in my stomach'.
It culminates in a gut-wrenching moment when Tom reveals he was told by his management team as late as 2017 that he 'wouldn't want people thinking he was gay' as he started to hang around with his now husband, the Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black.
If his mental health hadn't already taken enough of a toll, crisis meetings with his manager about whether he was going to lose all of his sponsorships if he came out as gay certainly didn't help. More Trending
However, with each tough moment in the documentary, Tom's triumphs in the world of diving and his determination to be himself every step of the way make this a necessary, even critical viewing experience.
Tom's journey demonstrates that collectively, we have a responsibility to allow athletes to be human beings, not just Gold medal machines.
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1.6 Seconds is available to watch on Discovery Plus from June 1.
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