He is recording a ‘thank you’ message for his long-time coach Jane Figueiredo, who guided him to Olympic gold, silver and two bronze medals, as well as numerous World, European and Commonwealth titles, during an astounding 11-year partnership.

Daley had already won a World title, at Rome 2009, when he was just 15 and secured his maiden Olympic medal – bronze at London 2012 – before the pair had even met, but the diver insists it was Figueiredo who taught him what it meant to be a “real athlete.”

Earlier this month the Malawi-born, Zimbabwe-raised, Portugal Olympic diver, turned Russia and most recently Great Britain coach, announced that she would leave her role with Aquatics GB and return to her home in the USA.

“It’s been an incredible and beautiful journey,” says the Figueiredo, who guided seven athletes to Olympic medals during her career. 

“My head is so full of knowledge and my heart is so full of love. I’m grateful for every moment and of course for the incredible journey Tom and I have shared over the years.”

Daley adds; “Thank you for everything you did for me during my diving career (and) teaching me what it meant to be a real athlete.”

In an exclusive extended interview with World Aquatics, Figueiredo gave previously unheard insights around the development of her relationship with Daley and some of the key moments – the good and the bad – which shaped their sensational 11-year story.

Among the highlights, how;

Figueiredo was not initially keen to work with Daley, saying she knew there was a lot of ‘hoopla’, but couldn’t understand ‘the big deal’ at the time;

She regretted not being firmer with Daley during Rio 2016 ‘devastation’;

It fuelled their incredible World Championship redemption 12 months later;

Lockdown restrictions potentially ‘helped’ Daley’s Tokyo Olympic gold bid;

Telling Daley he initially ‘wasn’t needed’ for Paris 2024 – where he went on to win silver – after he decided to return to the sport following a two-year career break.

The British team’s history-making success at Paris 2024 was dedicated to late diving coach David Jenkins, a former colleague, who passed away suddenly in 2021.

She ‘dreams’ Daley could return for one last Olympic Games, come LA2028.

Daley and Evangulov ‘Wooed’ Figueiredo to the UK

“I remember I said ‘no, hell no’ a few times. The weather is awful!”

Following the ‘highs’ of achieving a dream Olympic medal with bronze at his home Games, Daley unsurprisingly experienced a strong sense of ‘post-Olympic blues’.

It is a phenomenon which generally refers to the emotional comedown experienced by athletes after a prolonged, often stressful build-up to what is potentially the biggest moment of their lives, followed by an incredible ‘high’ and subsequent sense of loss, post Games.

Daley had dragged himself back to training, but now 18, he was no longer the ‘child star’ of old and was entering a new phase of his life, which included appearing in TV show ‘Splash!’ which saw him guide celebrities, in their attempts to dive from an Olympic platform.

He was criticised publicly by the then British Swimming chief executive David Sparkes who warned him to cut back on his media commitments, while in the pool the diver suffered a series of injuries.

Then British Swimming performance director Alexei Evangulov knew Daley needed fresh impetuous and he reached out to Figueiredo, who was based in Huston, USA.

The pair had worked together with the British team around the Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games before Evangulov joined the Russian setup. The pair maintained their relationship with Figueiredo assisting with the recruitment of Russian athletes to the University of Houston programme, which she headed up.

As part of her partnership with Evangulov and the Russian team, the Portuguese Olympian coached Vera Ilyina and Yulia Pakhalina to Olympic gold at Sydney 2000 and Pakhalina well as new partner Anastasia Pozdniakova to silver at Beijing 2008.

Evangulov was then appointed to his position with the Britain setup following those Games.

Following the London 2012 Olympic Games, he called his old friend, “out of the blue.”

“He asked if I would be the team manager for Rio 2016, assuming I spoke Portuguese, but although my father is Portuguese, my mother is British, so we spoke English (at home),” Figueiredo recalls.

“I believe ‘oh, bummer’ was his response, but he quickly invited me to the UK for a conference and on the way back to the airport he asked if I’d be interested in moving to the UK.

“I was like ‘hell no, no, no, no; the weather’s miserable’ and I was really happy in America.”

Evangulov likes, in his own words, a ‘cunning plan’, and he was far from finished with his idea of bringing his friend to London so she could head up a new British Diving high-performance centre at the Olympic Aquatics Centre.

Tom Daley was keen to move from his childhood city of Plymouth, in the South West of England, and base himself in the capital, but at that stage, the prospect of working with Britain’s Olympic bronze medal-winning diver did not appeal.

“Obviously, I knew who Tom Daley was, but I wouldn't say that I was overly impressed,” she tells World Aquatics with a smile. “I remember thinking there’s a lot of ‘hoopla’ around the guy, but big deal, right?’ he hadn’t won any (major) medals.”

Evangulov was undeterred, as was Daley, who his performance director had convinced that Figueiredo was undoubtedly the coach he needed to progress as a diver.

She had previously helped Britain’s Athens 2004 Olympic silver medal-winning duo Leon Taylor and Peter Waterfield during various stages of their career by offering them ‘rest bite’ and a fresh impetus and a different environment in the USA.

Figueiredo assumed Evangulov was looking for the same assistance when he messaged in late 2013 to say Daley was heading to the USA ‘soon’ and would be calling her.

“I knew that he was an up-and-coming diver; the world of diving was very, very excited about him, and certainly Great Britain was too, but I really had no idea about his celebrity status, and at that time, I wasn't quite clear why he was coming,” she recalls.

It soon transpired that ‘soon’ would be the following day.

Daley worked hard to impress Figueiredo, who soon realised how keen he was to recruit her, but she was adamant her base would remain in the USA, and the coach had some other ‘home truths’ to deliver.

“We sat in my kitchen after he arrived and he said, ‘I want to win an Olympic gold medal, so what do you think I'm gonna have to do to win that?’ and I was like, how much time do we have? Because the list is long.

“He was struggling at that time, he had torn his triceps and he wasn't enjoying diving, but there were lots of things about his diving I didn’t like; his knees were bent, his shapes were very big, I didn’t think he moved very quickly and was scruffy.

“Tom was still young and there was a lot about him, but I was comparing him with the top in the world, like the Russian women I’d coached, who were absolutely beautiful.

“I was honest, ‘these are all the things that are not going your way, but can we do something? Absolutely, 100%’, but it was gonna take time.”

Just days after they began working together though, Figueiredo’s optimism grew and their relationship quickly developed.

“He was full of life and I was instantly attracted to him because I instantly understood his work ethic,” she admits. “He really was very exciting and I had not felt that way in a couple years, since I had the Russian women.”

Daley returned to the UK, but was back with Figueiredo in Houston later in the year, using her base for not only training, but to escape the media-glare following the release of a video where he revealed he was in a relationship with another man.

Once back in the UK and Figueiredo had been convinced to have a site-visit of the Aquatics Centre, which was undergoing its post-Olympic Games transformation, there was a change in her mindset.

“One minute we were walking around the site in our hard hats and then I knew at that point that this could be something pretty special,” recalls the ex-diver.

In early 2014 it was confirmed that Figueiredo would lead the Dive London setup, with Daley the ‘landmark’ name the programme would be focused around.

Replacing the ‘Demon’ Dive with a New ‘Firework’ Routine

Results-wise, Daley made steady progress under his new coach, claiming individual European 10m silver in 2014 as well as World 10m bronze in 2015, but many were unaware of just what it had taken to get into that position.

During London 2012, Daley had to request a re-dive after being distracted by flash photography during his ‘twister’ dive and while it was granted he would ultimately develop a fear around the routine.

“He had a mental block with his back twister, and as a high-performance coach, you always think you can solve it, but it was a much bigger problem,” Figueiredo reveals.

The ‘backwards 2.5 somersault, with 2.5 twists routine in the piked position’ became known as his ‘demon’ dive, but together with his coach, he devised a solution, replacing it with one which had a much more positive name: the ‘firework’.

The ‘3.5 somersaults with one twist’ creation had never before been attempted from a 10m platform, and it certainly aided his return to form.

Shock ‘devastation’ at the Rio 2016 Olympics

“I would have done things a little differently.”

In the months leading into Rio 2016, which would be Daley’s third Games, he was arguably at the peak of his powers.

Strong World Cup performances, followed by a commanding European gold-medal-winning performance in his home pool in London, served as timely reminders of his growing strength.

That optimism increased further after he and Daniel Goodfellow claimed Olympic bronze in the synchronised 10m platform event, all the more impressive given they had only been paired together for the first time in late 2015.

Eleven days on, in the preliminaries for the men’s 10m platform discipline, Daley delivered what was at that stage the performance of his life, breaking the Olympic scoring record with a total of 571.85 points from his six routines.

The following day he would return to the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre venue expecting to ease through to another Olympic final, but what played out stunned not only those watching, but those closest to Daley, as well as the man himself.

He scored just 403.25 and failed to progress from the semi-finals, the first major shock disappointment of his career and he described the moment as “truly heart-breaking.”

What had gone wrong? Had Daley and Figueiredo fallen out? Had something else gone on? Speculation was rife not only on social media, but throughout the world of diving.

“Now that I've had time to reflect on it, I know exactly where we went wrong,” admits Figueiredo. “We didn’t do an escape strategy, we did not rest as much as we should have. 

“To win a gold medal was going to take a lot of emotional strength, so because he wins the bronze in the synchro and then comes out in the prelim wins so well, I mean, we're just flying and we didn’t do an escape strategy to get away and switch off.

“That was my fault as well as his, but there were other things like people crowding the pool deck after prelims to try and watch or film him and I was like ‘get away’.

“Our relationship was still so young and to try and win a gold medal at that stage, well we are positive people and believe in miracles.”

Figueiredo also adds that while she and Daley have often looked back very negatively on the Rio Olympics and the post-Games fall-out within the sport it led to, there were positives.

“Tom and I, we call them our ‘failures’, but you know, we also forgot and didn't really give ourselves credit for a bronze medal that we achieved, that we had no business winning (given the infancy of the partnership between Daley and Goodfellow).”

Rio redemption – Daley’s brilliance in Budapest

“You know that cliche, ‘from your greatest failures come your greatest successes’, well I had never lived that cliche, but going through that with Tom, I actually now understand it.”

Daley has since admitted had he won individual Olympic gold in 2016 he would likely have retired from the sport, but fuelled with a desire to redeem himself, he returned.

“We didn’t take much time off (after Rio 2016) because we were just so angry and disappointed and I think our next journey was all about, for him ‘going to show everybody that I am not what you saw at the Olympic Games, that is not me,” said Figueiredo.

“Both of us had that same vision.”

The contrast between performances in Rio, with what the diver delivered at the 2017 World Aquatics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, could not have been any greater.

Third in the preliminaries, second in the semi-finals, there was one clear target for the final, but Olympic champion in Aisen Chen as well as countryman and rising Chinese star Jian Yang, were both in supreme form and seeking the same outcome.

It was an enthralling final with the battle for the crown largely played out between Chen and Daley, with the Chinese celebrating wildly after their man delivered what appeared to be a gold-medal winning final routine. But Daley was not done.

He delivered the highest-scoring dive of his career, 106.20, to achieve his highest-ever overall score, 590.95, which beat his previous best recorded in the Rio 2016 preliminaries.

Securing the title after one of the most spectacular – and high-class – 10m diving finals of all-time, made it without doubt the greatest individual performance of his career.

“What he did, incredible,” recalls Figueiredo with tears in her eyes.

“It was a defining moment for Tom Daley, because his mental power and his ability to show the world what kind of athlete he really is.”

It was the second individual World Championship gold medal of his career, with the first coming eight years earlier at Rome 2009.

However, while that had been attained after rivals Qiu Bo and Matthew Mitcham made significant shock mistakes with their final routines, this was attained purely by out-performing his opponents. 

Figueiredo concludes her thoughts on Budapest 2017 by admitting; “that was the turning point in his career.”

Tokyo 2020 | How Lockdown Helped Daley Achieve His ‘Dream’ Gold

“COVID was such a tragedy around the world and I lost friends to it, but is made us approach things differently and that was important, so important.”

The 12-month postponement to the Tokyo 2020 Games, following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, could have spelt disaster for Daley, whose body was increasingly feeling the strain created by well over a decade of repeatedly hitting the water at over 35km/h.

“Covid forced us into ‘captivity’, into being indoors, so you couldn’t spend energy doing frivolous things, like being out on the red carpet, or doing commercials and that’s what I’d been begging him for so long – take time to rest, recover and take up a hobby,” she says.

“I was used to the Russian system where they were so good because they were always calm, resting, recuperating and saving energy for that big moment.

“But that’s what I didn’t realise (early in their relationship), that’s not Tom Daley and that’s not Great Britain, so that was challenging for me.

“Covid forced Tom to do something that he wouldn't have probably done on his own.”

As is tradition, the synchronised events initiate the Olympic diving programme and Daley, with new partner Matty Lee, had an instant opportunity to claim a morale-boosting medal.

Daley had adopted a different approach ahead of Tokyo 2020, for the first time – and contrast to interviews ahead of pre-Rio 2016 – he would not be drawn on medal prospects.

This, according to Figueiredo, was strategic, although she had private thoughts, she is now able to share.

“I knew going into Tokyo that they could win silver, so I would have been 100% happy with silver,” she recalls. “I never once thought we were going to win gold, I just didn’t.”

Daley and Lee finished their programme first and had to wait for the Chinese pair Chen Aisen and Cao Yuan to complete their final routine, but before the performed it the GB divers joined their coach on the poolside.

“I was looking at him and saying ‘it’s great, we got a medal’ and he just looked at me and was like ‘Jane, are you kidding? We’re going to win’, but I wasn’t quite following.

“He was mumbling the scores and what the Chinese needed and I was thinking okay, so that’s for us to get the silver? (rather than bronze), I just didn’t know what was going on.

“Then the scores came up and he started screaming because we’d won the gold and I’d been completely oblivious.”

Figueiredo beams when she recalls what was “probably by far my proudest moment.”

Daley would also go on to win individual bronze later in the Games and although Figueiredo admits there was a strong chance it “could have been gold” that day as well, it was still historic, marking the time a British diver had won two medals at a single Olympics.

Paris 2024 – ‘Unretiring’ and Creating a Legacy for David Jenkins

“I told Tom I didn’t need him, I mean, who tells Tom Daley they don’t need him!?”

Following the Rio 2016 Games Daley had joked that he would keep returning to the sport until he won the Olympic gold medal he had dreamed of as a child.

For that reason, combined with his injuries and a young family, as well as expressing an open desire to return to the USA with his American husband Dustin Lance Black, Daley was not expected to dive again, after achieving his life goal at Tokyo 2020.

He never officially announced his retirement, but as time ticked towards Paris 2024 it was widely assumed by most inside the sport, together with his coach, that he had ended his competitive career.

Figueiredo herself had planned a year sabbatical, but her break ended early following the news of the tragic passing of British coach David Jenkins.

“I wasn’t really sure if I was going to come back, because with Tom (likely) retiring I wasn’t sure there was a reason,” recalls the Olympian.

“I was on a trip to Mexico at the time when David passed away on a training camp in Turkey and then I had a personal reason to return to London, because a lot of people were in a bad way.”

Figueiredo picked up the Dive London programme again, but also took on the full-time coaching of rising star talents Noah Williams, Scarlett Mew Jensen and Kyle Kothari, together with Matty Lee and Grace Reid, who she had previously worked with.

In the absence of Daley, Williams became Lee’s new partner and the pair impressively won World Championship silver at the Budapest 2022 World Aquatics Championships.

“Tom and I had of course kept in touch as we’re best friends and he’d asked if he should come back, I said yes, but he said he wasn’t ready and that went on for quite a while,” she says.

“Then I think it was the July before the Olympics (2023) and he was like ‘I’m gonna come back,’ but I was like ‘I’ve been begging you for two years!’

“He started sending me videos of him training and he was unbelievable, but we already had a partnership with Matty and Noah and so I was like ‘I don’t need you, because these guys can win a silver, I already have that partnership.’

“Who tells Tom, I don't really need you, but I did, because what was I going to tell those guys, oh, Tom's back, one of you got to move? That didn’t seem appropriate.”

Figueiredo set Daley several training goals and left him with a glimmer of hope, revealing that if Williams and Lee did not qualify for the Olympics at the first attempt, by finishing in the top-three at the 2023 World Championships, she would be ‘open’ to his return.

The British pair finished fourth and that combined with Lee suffering further injury complications presented Daley with a chance to make his comeback as a synchronised diving specialist, with his body no longer able to withstand the rigours of individual contests.

Despite edging towards his 30^th birthday, Daley marked his international return by winning the fourth World Championship title of his career as part of Great Britain’s Mixed Team line-up at the Doha 2024 Worlds.

He and Williams then claimed synchronised silver and secured their place at the Paris 2024 Games, which would be Daley’s fifth Olympics, a record for a GB diver.

There the Briton would complete his set of Olympic honours with a maiden silver, while Williams would also add individual bronze to his haul, in what was a best-ever Olympic Games for British divers, who attained five medals.

“What Tom was able to do with Noah and what the team achieved was incredible, but when Paris was over, there was a huge sense of relief,” Figueiredo admits.

“I was coaching for David, so that journey was very, very difficult and almost not much fun because the expectation was so high to deliver in David's name, it was almost too much.

“But we did all that in honour of Dave and that was at the forefront of our minds, a legacy for him.”

The Future and Ready for a New Phase

Although the Paris 2024 Olympic Games concluded over six months ago, Figueiredo only officially drew to her 11-year journey with the Aquatics GB setup to a close after the GB Winter Cup in Sheffield, an event which perhaps aptly saw Dive London top the medal standings.

“I've been in the UK and representing Team GB for 11 years now and I've decided this is the right time to take some time for myself, my family, my loved ones, and have a little bit of a break from diving coaching,” she reveals.

“As most high-performance coaches know, the grind of six days a week, every day, little time off, putting your athletes always first and helping them to their Olympic dreams, it’s like a hamster wheel and although there are no regrets about that, ever, I'm exhausted.

“I’m excited to reflect on my coaching career, do some traveling and maybe write a memoir about my journey, but I would love to give back to the sport of diving.”

Upon learning of Figueiredo’s decision to step away from the GB setup and return to the USA, Daley wanted to pay tribute to the sacrifices she made in order to help him achieve his goals.

“I’m so grateful to you for being there through thick and thin, standing up for me and being there for the hard moments, the fun moments, the crazy moments and the happy moments,” said the now former diver. “I appreciate you more than you’ll ever know.”

When asked how it felt to hear such a message, Figueiredo wiped away tears before admitting was “pretty special” given how Daley had a “really difficult time articulating feelings” earlier in their relationship.

“I’m looking forward to being able to enjoy our friendship on a different level and it’s of course not just about the medals,” she says. “It’s about something much deeper.”

I’m Not Done with Diving and ‘Daring to Dream’ | Daley Could Return for #LA2028

Figueiredo openly expresses her “shock” that Daley officially announced his retirement from the sport moments after returning to the UK from the Games.

The tears which flowed, as he confirmed – live on British television – the news which had been revealed via a press released moments earlier, suggested there would be no future U-turn.

“When Tom said he’d retired I called him and I was quite emotional, because I wanted him to know that he is the world of diving,” she says. “Single-handily, he is the world of diving. 

“Why is that so? Because people love him. He embraces his sport. He's almost like the Roger Federer of tennis, he is the Tom Daley of diving, he's so appreciative, and he makes everybody feel special.

“I think the world of diving without him, has (suffered) a huge, big love loss.” 

But with Daley based in Los Angeles, the city which will host the next summer Olympics in 2028, could he yet return and appear at a ‘second home’ Games after London 2012?

“I will encourage him to find a way to be a part of the world of diving in a different way, but I’m also a dreamer,” says Figueiredo with a smile.

“I'm gonna dream about Tom Daley returning in LA for a team event, a synchro event and I’m gonna hold on to that little thing.

“I'll be available to Tom Daley, wherever he may be in the world, if he needs me to do something even more special, I'll be there.”