Tom Daley and Helen Glover have been named as Workforce GB’s flagbearers forward of Friday’s opening ceremony on the 2024 Paris Olympic Video games.
They’re two of Britain’s most skilled Olympians. Glover is a two-time rowing gold medallist poised to participate in her fourth Olympics having come of retirement to compete at Tokyo 2020.
Daley, in the meantime, is about to function at his fifth Video games as he competes within the 10m synchronised platform occasion alongside Noah Williams, with whom he gained silver on the World Championships in February.
Glover gained gold in 2012 and 2016 in addition to ending fourth within the ladies’s pairs in Tokyo, whereas Daley arrives having gained gold with Matty Lee within the males’s synchronised 10m platform in 2021. Daley is the primary Workforce GB diver to win 4 Olympic medals
‘Being a flagbearer greatest honour of my life’
On being named as a flagbearer, Glover stated: “That is in all probability the most important honour of my life. I simply love the Olympics and have all the time liked what it stood for. I nonetheless pinch myself that I’m an Olympian, being a flagbearer and taking place in historical past
“I’ve never been to an opening ceremony before and I’ll be carrying the flag at my first one. It’s unbelievable to be in this position. The team is full of amazing stories and inspirational people, so to be representing every athlete’s individual story when I stand there is really important to me.”
Daley added: “To be requested to be flagbearer is likely one of the biggest honours in my Olympic diving profession. To have the ability to do it in my fifth Olympic Video games and have my household here’s a very particular factor.
“It has always been a dream of mine, since I was a little kid. I remember in 2008 walking out behind the flagbearer right in the front line, because we were the smallest group of people, and to now be one of the two people to lead out the team is such a huge honour.
“If my dad was round now, he can be so extremely proud, as a result of he all the time stated that you’d know you might have cemented your Olympic legacy if you’re requested to be a flagbearer at an Olympic Video games.”
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Tom Daley says his son was behind his determination to make a comeback to compete at a fifth Olympic Video games
‘Fairytale endings are so laborious to search out’
Each Daley and Glover are impressed by their households.
For Glover her involvement sends a message. “I’m 37. I’ve got three kids and I want to show there’s no reason I should not be doing this,” she advised Sky Sports activities Information.
“I do think sport is a big reflection on society and there is this sense of when women have children, they’re kind of different, changed and yes they are but that can be really positive. I’m a very different person to who I was in London and Rio but I think I’m a better athlete because of it.”
She added: “I don’t think every person will make this choice. I don’t think every mum who starts a family will want to go back to work, will want to go back to their hobbies, will want to go into their sport. But every single mum should have the choice. It’s about choice and options. Because that’s what makes you feel isolated and lonely.
“When you might have a household the choice ought to nonetheless be there. You do not have to. You do not have to do it, you do not have to go and change into an Olympian. However it’s best to have selections that make you’re feeling like the perfect model of your self.”
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Two-time gold medallist Helen Glover says she desires to showcase how ladies can return to sport after having youngsters and insists she is now a greater athlete due to her motherhood expertise
She does need to finish her Video games in Paris with a medal. “I always want to look back on this time with the fairytale ending and that’s tricky because fairytale endings are so hard to find in sport. They’re so hard to find and they’re so unpredictable. I think I want the fairytale ending for them more than they do, they just love me as their mum,” she stated.
However she added: “After being through so much of the hard bit, I’d love to celebrate the good bit. It’s going to be a celebration either way, but whether it’s a fairytale is just down to the day and the moment.”
Daley mirrored on his comeback. “I thought Tokyo was my last games,” he advised Sky Sports activities Information.
“With a little bit of time and a bit of space, it made me really miss diving, that atmosphere, the team-mates and being able to travel and see my friends from around the world but it actually all came down to my son Robbie who wanted to see me dive again.
“When your child says that they need you to do one thing, you’d do something on your children.
“I remember thinking it was an impossible dream to take two years out and get back in time to qualify and be ready to dive at an Olympics within a year seems kind of silly, but he said: ‘Papa I want to see you diving at the Olympics’ and that was that.”
