Today he acts as a mentor to aspiring athletes including Tom Daley, a role he also plays for the Lloyds TSB Local Heroes.
Divers talk in code. So, from a technical point of view, Leon Taylor created dive 5255b.
Translated in to English, this means a backward 2.5 somersaults with 2.5 twists in the piked position. It takes 1.5 seconds to complete, between launching from the 10-metre platform and entering the water at 40mph. At the time of its invention, in May 1998, it was classified as the world’s most difficult dive by the sport’s governing body, FINA.
And, if all goes to plan, at London 2012 Tom Daley will reap the benefit of Leon’s desire to push the boundaries of what is possible.
Q: Tell us how the idea to create the dive came about?
A: In 1998 the rules of the sport changed. The governing body of aquatics (FINA) decided they would update the sport. Ultimately the opportunity came along to do new dives and only a few people took up the challenge. Working with my coach, we sat down and thought what is possible now this box had been taken off? In May 1998, I invented the world’s most difficult dive and it’s called the backward, two-and-a-half somersaults with two-and-a-half twist in the piked position and it had a difficulty of 3.8. For the first 18 months, I was the only person on the planet brave enough to perform it.
Q: Was there a broader objective to creating the dive?
A: The intention was to change the perception of the Great Britain diving team. At that time we didn’t have the reputation as China and Russia etc did. Now Tom Daley has taken it on further and the shift in perception is paying dividends. I experienced it on a more local level. Slowly but surely the judges realised Great Britain had something to offer. You’ve got to calculate the risks, but you can always go back to an easier dive if it doesn’t work.
Q: How would you sell the sport of diving to someone who may not know much about it?
A: The so called smaller sports offer the opportunity to get up close and personal to the athletes. The access to these people is far easier. When I was competing, people would only ever see diving at the Olympic Games and they would love it and say ‘I wish I could see it more’.
It’s all about education so that you know what you’re watching – the key is good commentary, and good punditry to say ‘look this is actually what you’re looking at’ in Greco Roman Wrestling or fencing or whatever. So, educate the audience so they get it and once you get it, you enjoy it more. If you’re watching something and you don’t know the rules to, you’re just watching a lot of movement.
Q: In terms of watching diving what are you looking for?
A: Ok, here’s a complete bluffers guide to diving. The marks are awarded on the entry into the water. So the dive is obviously important and there’s a lot of technical aspects to that, but what you’re looking at for top marks is entry into the water without any splash at all and as completely vertical as possible. With synchronised diving, it’s much easier for the layman because you can see whether people are spinning at the same time, whether they are the same distance from the diving board and whether they achieve the same height from the diving board. So you can really pick the faults or the excellence within that particular discipline of the sport.
Q: Tell us about your career since retiring from competition
A: Since I’ve retired, I’ve been spending my time figuring out what it was that got me to the top, personally. And what it does being in elite sport then coming out into this real world. I was looking at differences in performances in certain areas and I think mentoring is the first topic in that journey that I’ve been compelled to explore further.
So I’ve looked back on my 22 years in elite sport and many of those years as a mentee, and then, since retiring in 2008, being a mentor and I thought ‘well, what is it about that relationship, what is it that you do when you’re doing it’ – being a mentor. What are the experiences that worked for me that maybe didn’t work so well [as a mentor] and vice versa. I’ve tried to capture this almost forgotten art of mentoring and how you do it. Do you tell them what to do? I would say that when you tell people what to do or give them advice, that’s probably the least effective way of passing on information.
Q: How should young athletes be helped?
A: There’s a whole multitude of ways. I think the easiest way is sharing experiences in a non-directive way. You want someone to learn from an experience that you’ve had instead of telling them they should do this and not that. You just tell them the story of what you did, the trials you went through, and they pick the learning out of that. You could even tell them a metaphoric story about something completely unrelated, but unconsciously they’d make sense of that. That’s why I’m privileged about the role I play on the Lloyds TSB Local Heroes programme because I get to give back and say, ‘well here’s some stuff that made a difference to me, here’s the ups and downs I went through’.
Q: So, what are you doing with the Local Heroes?
A: My role specifically is about mentoring and it’s being there to get them to buy in, to help them on their sporting journey. They are taking a day out of school, a day out of training to come along to a Local Heroes workshop. What’s the value in it to them? I stand at the front and say, ‘I wish I was you’. And I tell them. ‘If I was you, I’d benefit greatly’. I’ve actually achieved something that they want to do, which is to be at the top of a sport. So by me saying at the start of the day I’m jealous that I’m not one of them, that gets their buy-in rather than ‘a suit’ standing at the front saying this is what you need to listen to, you need to do this, this and this. I think that’s the role that I play.