Diver Tom Daley sends a powerful message to the LGBTQ community after his gold medal win
The British diver Tom Daley said last month he hoped his gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics would be a shining example for the LGBTQ community that “you can achieve anything,” reported NBC News.
Daley and his diving partner, Matty Lee, swept to victory in the men’s synchronized 10-meter platform event, with the British diver crying tears of joy at the podium. This is Daley’s fourth Olympics and the first time he has taken a gold medal.
“I hope that any young LGBT person out there can see that no matter how alone you feel right now, you are not alone. That you can achieve anything and that there is a whole lot of your chosen family out here, ready to support you.”
“I feel incredibly proud to say that I am a gay man and also an Olympic champion,” he said. “And I feel very empowered by that because when I was younger, I thought I was never going to be anything, or achieve anything, because of who I was, and to be an Olympic champion now just shows that you can achieve anything.”
Daley, 27, said he was glad to see a record-breaking number of openly out LGBTQ athletes participating in the Olympic Games this year.
However, he said that when he first came out in December 2013, he had “always felt like the one that was alone and different and didn’t fit in.”
“There was something about me that was always never going to be as good as what society wanted me to be,” he said.
Now, he said, “I hope that any young LGBT person out there can see that no matter how alone you feel right now, you are not alone. That you can achieve anything and that there is a whole lot of your chosen family out here, ready to support you.”
Daley’s spouse is Oscar-winning film screenwriter, director and producer Dustin Lance Black.
