Tom Daley opens up about Olympic heartbreak

In a YouTube video posted for fans today, Tom Daley’s usually cheerful face could not hide the disappointment he feels over his solo diving results at the Olympics in Rio.

‘It’s really hard to accept that I wasn’t able to make the final,’ Daley says as he walks along a street in Rio still wet from the rain.

‘… The individual event was a tough pill for me to swallow.’ Daley failed to qualify for the Men’s Olympic 10m dive final after coming in last in the semifinals.

A day earlier in the preliminaries, Daley looked primed to improve upon his bronze medal performance in the event at the London Olympics in 2012 as he finished in first with a personal best of 571.85.

But the bronze he won in the synchronized diving event with partner Dan Goodfellow would be his only medal in Rio.

‘Going into the individual event I’d been diving the best I’d ever dived in the preliminaries … and was feeling really good, moving really well – felt like I was in the best shape I’d ever been in in my whole, entire career.’

Daley, 22, isn’t able to explain his letdown in the semifinals but he is able to explain how it has made him feel.

‘I was completely heartbroken to have not made the final and (been) given the chance to actually go for gold and achieve my dream of becoming Olympic champion,’ he said. ‘It was one of the toughest experiences for me to be able to get over because of the hard work I’ve been able to put in, the four years of training … the amount of cardio, the hours in the gym, and the hours doing weights.’

But, as always, he is learning from the setback.

‘There’s a lot of lessons I’ve learned from this time at the Olympic Games – not just for diving but life lessons of how it can make me stronger as a person.

‘Flying home today I’m looking forward to having a little bit of time off to rest my mind and body and be able to spend some time with (fiance Dustin Lance Black) and my family and be able to switch off for a little bit.’