Noah Williams was only 12 when he went to watch Tom Daley – then the fresh-faced 18-year-old poster boy of London 2012 – claim an extraordinary bronze medal in the 10m platform dive. He admits now that he had little idea that 12 years later he would be gearing up to partner Daley in the synchronised 10m platform at Paris 2024, but says he always thought he would be an Olympian.
“I was a bit delusional when I was younger, I thought I was going to make the Olympics easily,” says the 24-year-old with a wry grin. “I think that helped me because if I had realised how far off the Olympics and how much work I had to put in to get to where I am now, I think I probably would have quit. I thought I was so close to making it, even though I was nowhere near.”
On Monday Williams will step out on to the platform with Daley for the synchro, with the older diver counting the numbers for their dive. The partnership was formed only in November after Matty Lee – Daley’s gold-medal winning partner of Tokyo 2020 and Williams’s regular partner – had to pull out because of injury. Since that point the pair have been training separately as Daley lives in the United States.
Williams, who will also compete solo in the 10m platform, credits Daley with improving his diving since they started competing together. “He is better than me,” he says bluntly. “So I guess when I’m training with him, I’m trying to get to where he is.” He also pays tribute to Lee – the pair are great friends and have matching tattoos – and seems genuinely delighted that the 26-year-old will be in Paris to watch. “He’ll be up there on the board with me, cheering me on,” he says.
Williams is determinedly self-deprecating, arguing briefly that his presence in Paris is down to the fact that “so little people do it, it’s a very niche sport” – but when he talks about how it feels to compete, it is clear he has the required Olympic combination of talent, a hunger to win and an abundance of sheer bloody determination.
“Doing a good dive in competition … it feels great,” he explains. “Doing a dive and coming out and you’ve got nines or 10s, that for divers is the best feeling, especially in competitions. It feels good in training when you do a good dive, but it’s nowhere near the same as when the pressure is on and got one chance, and you actually perform.”
Coming into Paris, Williams’s form is strong. In February he and Daley won silver medals at the world championships in Doha, to match the silver Williams had won with Lee in the event in 2022. He became a double gold medallist at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham (in the men’s synchro platform with Lee, and the mixed synchro platform with Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix).
In Paris, Williams feels he perhaps has something to prove after his first Olympics in Tokyo 2020, when he came 27th. “Tokyo was boring, there was nobody in the crowd and I was doing awfully, and I couldn’t get pumped because I didn’t really care,” he says. “Which is awful because I enjoy competitions, but there was literally no one there and it felt like it was nothing. This time there’ll be people there so it will be fun.”
Does he think the crowds in Paris will help him perform. “I’m sure if I had done well in Tokyo, I would be saying it didn’t matter,” he jokes. “But I didn’t so hopefully it does.”
Williams, a Hackney boy who started doing gymnastics alongside his mother when he was little more than a toddler, started diving when he was nine, after picking up a leaflet from the Crystal Palace Diving Club and credits his presence at Paris 2024 to his parents’ sacrifices.
“My dad had a few years where he literally couldn’t work because he had to take me from school to training, and it was not like we’re well off,” he says. “I appreciate it so much what they’ve done for me, and hopefully I can pay them back by doing this.”
Asked about life after Paris 2024, he talks of plans to run the London Marathon and go on holiday. But there is little money in diving, medallists do not receive prize money and divers receive funding of £28,000 in Great Britain, largely thanks to the National Lottery.
“I need to figure out my life at some point,” he laughs. “After I finish this, I’ve got nothing. I can’t walk into a bank [for a job] and be like: ‘So I can jump off high boards and go in the water with a little bit of splash.’ That’s not going to get me anything.”
