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Among the many fan favorites on the Paris Olympics is Tom Daley, Britain’s most adorned diver.

On Monday morning, Daley took silver within the males’s synchronized 10-meter platform occasion with teammate Noah Williams. China’s Lian Junjie and Yang Hao gained gold, whereas Canada’s Rylan Wiens and Nathan Zsombor-Murray earned bronze.

Daley, 30, now has 5 Olympic medals in his assortment, together with one gold and three bronze.

Even earlier than Daley’s efficiency on Monday, followers from world wide have been beaming to see him on the Olympics. Daley deliberate to retire after the Tokyo Video games, however had a change of coronary heart after visiting the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum in Colorado.

“On the finish, there was this video of what it means to be an Olympian, and naturally, by the top of it, I used to be crying, and Robbie turned to me and mentioned, ‘What is the matter, Papa, what is the matter?’ I mentioned I missed diving and I missed the Olympics,” Daley informed Olympics.com, referring to his oldest son. “And Robbie was like, ‘I need to see you dive on the Olympics.’ And that was that.”

On high of expertise, followers love Daley for his humor, his household and his knitting — amongst different causes.

The world watched Daley develop up

Daley made his Olympic debut at simply 14 years previous in 2008, turning into the youngest athlete to compete for Britain on the Video games in almost 50 years. He didn’t win a medal in Beijing, but it surely was clear that he had an extended, promising profession forward of him.

The world watched on as Daley grew taller and his voice deepened. Followers additionally admired Daley’s honesty about being bullied by classmates after the Olympics. At 14, Daley quickly withdrew from faculty in consequence. Later in life, he grew to become an advocate in opposition to bullying.

“Should you’re being bullied in school, you are not the one one,” he informed the BBC in 2009.

Then, main as much as his second Olympics, followers noticed 17-year-old Daley navigate the lack of his father to mind most cancers in 2011.

The next yr, the younger diver took residence his first Olympic medal — a bronze — in London. He did it once more in 2016. And in 2020, at age 27, Daley struck gold, in addition to bronze once more, in Tokyo and have become probably the most adorned diver in Britain’s historical past.

He’s a household man

Daley isn’t the one individual his followers adore, but additionally his husband and two younger sons.

From the stands in Paris, Daley’s 6- and 1-year-old boys wore “Workforce Daley” T-shirts, whereas husband Dustin Lance Black’s eyes watered with pleasure as Daley carried out.

Daley has been in a relationship with Black since 2013, when Daley boldly informed the world he was in a relationship with a person through a video on Youtube.

“I met somebody, and it made me really feel so glad, so protected and all the things simply feels nice, and effectively that somebody is a man,” he mentioned in 2013.

Since then, Daley has additionally been a distinguished activist for LGBTQ rights.

And he knits!

Out of the pool, Daley captured individuals’s hearts along with his favourite pastime: knitting.

On his social media accounts, Daley frequently posts recommendations on the right way to knit and images of his handmade items. However his most viral and lauded knitting second occurred on the Tokyo Olympics, when cameras captured Daley knitting within the stands.

In an interview with NPR after the Tokyo Olympics, Daley mentioned it was initially his coach who urged he strive knitting as a result of he is “horrible at sitting nonetheless and resting and recovering.”

“It simply was my mindfulness, my meditation, my calm and my strategy to escape the stresses of on a regular basis life and, particularly, going into an Olympics,” he informed NPR.

His ardour for yarn is so sturdy that he launched his personal knitting store, in addition to wrote a ebook, Made with Love, which incorporates a few of his favoriting knitting and crocheting patterns.

Already, clips of Daley knitting in his seat whereas watching this yr’s Video games are making the rounds — bringing pleasure to the knitting neighborhood and sports activities followers alike.