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Your support makes all the difference.There are already adverts appearing on the telly about the second series of Splash! coming to our screens in January. I appeared briefly on the first series, and every time one of the new ads is on I get terrible flashbacks to those weird weeks last January.
I'd agreed to do the show because I rather enjoy throwing myself off high things into water. Every year in Canada, my kids and I dive off cliffs into the dark waters of Lake Joseph in Ontario. My wife does not partake. Her role is to sit on the boat shouting at the kids: "You don't have to do it, don't let him force you …"
She never seems to worry too much about me getting injured. And you do get injured diving. The first time I stood on the top of the 10-metre board with Tom Daley was a properly terrifying moment. Everything in your body suddenly starts to sound like my wife: "Don't do it, move back, get back down here you bonehead."
Tom told me that this fear never goes away. He gets that feeling every time he's up there – hats off to the young man is what I say. Anyone that does that on a regular basis is a braver man than me. His video, released last week, in which he came out was equally brave. I don't think that it came as much of a surprise to anyone, I certainly got a strong feeling when I met him that there was probably not going to be a Mrs Daley.
This was ironic because even when we were practising in the dive pool in Plymouth there would be a posse of excited young girls watching his every move and using cameras with staggeringly powerful zooms to capture him in budgie smugglers. On the night of the actual competition the place was packed to the rafters like a One Direction concert.
As we competitors were introduced one by one there was polite applause and the occasional "who?" Then Tom Daley was introduced and I nearly lost both eardrums. He appeared on the top board, lit by a single spotlight with his arms outstretched like Christ. The screams rose to a crescendo before Tom lifted off, did some impressive spins and cleaved the water below.
His coming out video was rather touching. He was clearly nervous and I loved the touch of having some Union Jack pillows positioned behind him. Whatever his sexuality, Tom is still diving for Britain. He left his legions of girl fans a little bit of hope by saying that: "I still fancy girls, obviously …"
This didn't seem to be too obvious to me. Whatever, I hope he got the reaction he hoped for and is happy in his life. More importantly, in light of Rebecca Adlington's admission on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! that all swimmers pee in the pool, I would have liked him to have cleared this up as well. I'm presuming it is less prevalent with divers as they are in and out of the water quicker but still, it would have been nice to know before I agreed to do Splash!
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