The Rio Olympics starts on 5 August and with that in mind we have chosen Tom Daley as our Inspirational Diversity Champion of the month.
Tom, from Plymouth, was spotted by a coach, taking part in regular diving lessons, and was placed in a competitive squad in September 2002.
His first competition was the National Novice Championships in April 2003 where he won a medal in the 8/9 year old boys category. In September 2003, he took part in an invitational event where he won the 1 m, 3 m and platform events, and first made his mark on the wider audience. He won his age group at the British Championships in the 1 m springboard, the 3 m springboard, and platform in 2004, 2005, and 2006.
In June 2004, at the age of 10, Tom won the platform competition in the National Junior (under 18) group, making him the youngest winner of that event. In 2005 despite meet the qualification standard for the 2006 Commonwealth Games, he was not selected for the England team because of his age.
Tom qualified for the Beijing 2008 Olympics in the individual 10 metre dive competition and the 10 metre platform synchro competition finishing 8th and 7th respectively. He was the youngest in the Olympic team at 14 years old.
In 2007 he won the 2007 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Young Personality award. From this time he was considered a medal prospect for the 2012 Olympic Games where he was successful at winning the Bronze medal in the 10 metre platform competition. Following the 2012 Olympics Tom struggled to find his enthusiasm for the sport, however a move to London and a change of coach helped and he is now competing at his third Olympics in Rio.
On 2 December 2013, Tom released a YouTube video announcing that he had been in a relationship with American film screenwriter, director and producer Dustin Lance Black. On 1 October 2015, it was announced in The Times that they were engaged. The announcement read “The engagement is announced between Tom, son of Robert and Debra Daley of Plymouth, and Lance, son of Jeff Bisch of Philadelphia and Anne Bisch of Lake Providence.”
In 2014, Tom was number 3 on the World Pride Power list.
Find out more about Tom and his life here https://www.youtube.com/user/tvtomdaley