I’m A Celebrity 2021: Who is Leeds Olympic gold medalist Matty Lee? The Yorkshire diver joining I’m A Celeb this year

The Yorkshire Olympic diver and Tom Daley won bronze and gold medals at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, which brought the total to eight medals for Yorkshire.

Who is Matty Lee?

Matty was born in Leeds and had idolised his diving partner Tom Daley from a young age.

He was a member of Dive London club, where he was mentored by Tom Daley’s long-term coach, Jane Figueiredo, as well as Russian Olympic divers, Vera Ilyina and Yuliya Pakhalina who won gold medals at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.

At the young age of 23, Matty has already carved a very successful career both nationally and globally.

Rising star

In 2012, the Yorkshire diver competed at his first European Junior Championships, where he won gold at the 3m Springboard and then went on to score the top results of seventh in the Group B platform at the World Junior Championships.

A year later, Matty won medals in all three Group B individual events at his second European Junior Championships; taking gold in the 3m title, silver in the 10m platform and bronze in the 1m Springboard.

In 2014, he debuted as a senior in the World Cup series; he was picked to compete at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, but backed out from the diving group due to an injury he sustained.

In 2015, Matty competed at the inaugural 2015 European Games; he won gold in the 10m platform.

He won bronze and gold at the 2017 European Diving Championships in the Men’s 10m platform and the mixed 10m synchro platform with diving partner Lois Toulson respectively.

Matty and his diving partner Kyle Kothari won the 10m synchro event at the 2018 British Diving Championships with a total score of 406.17, which was significantly higher than the second place score of 388.50.

In the same year, he went on to win a bronze medal with his diving partner, Lois Toulson, at the 2018 FINA Diving World Series in the mixed synchro platform.

At the 2018 European Championships, Matty and Lois won a silver medal in the mixed 10m synchro platform.