Tom Daley knits a tea-cosy holder to keep his gold medal safe from scratches

Great Britain’s Tom Daley had waited a long time to get his hands on an Olympic gold diving medal, having made his debut in Beijing in 2008 and coming close at every subsequent Olympics. With Monday’s victory in the 10m synchronised platform alongside Matty Lee, he finally has one – and on Tuesday demonstrated that he is determined to look after it.

Daley revealed on his Instagram account madewithlovebytomdaley that overnight in Tokyo he has knitted a little holder for his gold medal to “prevent it getting scratched.”

In the video, Daley laughs as he says: “This morning, I made a little cosy for my medal to stop getting scratched.”

He then produces the tea-cosy type effort, with a Union flag knitted on one side, and the Japanese flag on the other. Demonstrating its utility, Daley goes on to say: “It slots in like this. It all tucks in nicely, to have a little pouch for me to carry around my medal without it getting scratched. How about that?”

The madewithlovebytomdaley account boasts nearly 100,000 followers, and has been where Daley has shown off his knitting prowess since September last year.

He also praised the people who follow him on social media for his knitting-related content, saying his needlework during Covid restrictions had been a crucial part of his build-up to Olympic victory.

Daley said: “I don’t normally post things that are not necessarily knitting related on my ‘made with love’ page, but myself and Matty won the Olympics yesterday, and I thought I’d come on and just say the one thing that has kept me sane throughout this whole process is my love for knitting, crochet, and all things stitching. So I want to say thank you to all my followers on here too much for actually following along.”

The 27-year-old won plaudits for his speech after his gold medal. Having waited 13 years to secure a victory, Daley took a moment to say that “I feel incredibly proud to say that I am a gay man and also an Olympic champion. When I was younger I didn’t think I’d ever achieve anything because of who I was. To be an Olympic champion now just shows that you can achieve anything.”