Matty Lee interview: Highs and lows of the Olympic diving champion and I'm A Celebrity favourite

‘Safeguarding my mental health is something I’m very conscious of,’ the City of Leeds Diving Club graduate told The Yorkshire Post in the days after what he knows now, and already knew then, was the greatest accomplishment of his sporting career.

For a few months he rode the wave, met new people, went to ‘cool places’ and then in the eyes of the majority of the British public did something even more noteworthy than winning Olympic gold: went on television as a contestant on ‘I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here’.

It all meant that when the crash did come, no matter how strong the support team was he had built up around him, nothing could break Lee’s fall.

“For all the awareness of it and safeguards to ensure it doesn’t happen you just can’t avoid it,” Lee told The Yorkshire Post this week.

“It’s just natural. With any great high must come a low, that is inevitable.

“It wasn’t drastic. But when I came home after ‘I’m a Celeb’ I literally went straight back to my London flat, the show was still going on and I was back at training.

“Nothing felt exciting any more. My normal day-to-day life felt boring.

“I’d been on such a high after the Olympics. Everything was so fun and cool from winning that gold through to ‘I’m a Celeb’, just meeting people I never thought I would.

“It’s a weird thing with that show, you feel so important while you’re on it, you’re part of this 12-strong cast and the cameras are on you 24/7, then all of a sudden you’re back at home making scrambled egg and going to training.

“It hit me quite hard and it took me a long time to get over.”

Being recognised in the street for his starring role on ‘I’m a Celebrity’, as opposed to what he had achieved alongside Daley in winning Olympic gold in the 10pm platform in Tokyo, also took some getting used to.

Lee – who loved being on I’m a Celeb – eventually found solace in the repetition of the grind.

“All the cool, fun stuff died down, all those opportunities, but at the same time the thing that gives me joy is diving,” says the 24-year-old from Leeds.

“Diving is the thing that got me all those cool exciting things in the first place. Diving is what will get me there again so I just had to go back to basics and enjoy diving again.

“I struggled to get back into training and back into shape but eventually I did get there, and I had a great season, but it took some time.” He only competed in four events in 2022 - two national, two international - but performed to a medal-winning standard at each of them.

With Daley taking a year out after Tokyo – he is still to confirm whether he is continuing or retiring - Lee’s Dive London team-mate Noah Williams stepped up to become his new synchro partner.

They won a silver in their first competition at the world championships, and then a gold at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

“For me, with synchro you need the top two divers in the country competing together,” he says of the genesis of the new partnership.

“At nationals I came first and Noah was second, so it made sense putting us together.

“And it’s definitely worked well. Our first major competition we got a silver at the world championships which is a huge achievement. Me and Tom only got bronze in 2019, although I take the blame for that I messed up a dive.”

What gave him even greater heart was winning the bronze medal in the individual 10m platform in Birmingham.

Before and after Tokyo Lee had spoken of pursuing the individual in the run up to the 2024 Paris Olympics.

That ‘special’ achievement of an individual medal was Lee’s way of “proving to people I’m not just a synchro diver”.

“When you win a gold at your first Olympics, it’s like you’ve completed it,” says Lee, who left behind his roots and City of Leeds team-mates in 2018 to take up the golden opportunity of being Daley’s synchro partner.

“It took Tom, my hero and idol, four attempts to do what I managed first time.

“So I was like ‘what do I do next?’ ‘Do I need to prove myself again?’

“So many thoughts go through your head and it’s not very nice.

“But you’ve got to look past that and back yourself, because at the end of the day I’ve done it.

“I’ve reached my dream, so now everything is just fun, and the more you enjoy something the better you do, I genuinely believe that.

“If someone does really well at an Olympics that year afterwards can be absolutely terrible. But I think I did a good job managing my expectations and I still managed to medal at all the major events.”

There was a bittersweet twist to the Commonwealth Games. While invigorated to be diving in front of full crowds again, it would be the last time Lee’s father Tim would see his son dive.

For Matty lost that totem of his support network when Tim died suddenly in October.

“We’ve had a few horrible months,” admits Lee. “Dad was a huge part of my diving, he loved it, he absolutely loved it.

“That’s one of the reasons I get out of bed, and why I want to carry on doing what I’m doing. I want to make him proud. I know he’s somewhere smiling every time I dive.

“When I first moved to London I’d go home for a weekend once a month, but as I got used to it here I’d do that less and less. Last weekend I went back home. I didn’t know I needed it, but I really did. It’s obviously a time when I want to be there for my mum and my brother, because family’s important.”

He also has a family at the John Charles Aquatics Centre, which was his home from home from the age of seven to 20.

City of Leeds Diving Club continue to produce Olympians, none more prominent than Jack Laugher, a winner of Olympic medals of all three colours who is currently ensconced in his fourth Olympic cycle.

Lee is in his second, and like Laugher at Leeds, has taken on the mantle of team captain at Dive London, more by the osmosis of being an Olympic champion than any desire to lead.

“Since the Olympics I’ve taken on that added responsibility of looking out for the younger divers, being there for other athletes,” says Lee.

“It’s weird, I never guessed I’d be in that situation but when you’re Olympic champion it comes with the territory.”

Not that leadership comes easy to him. Alongside a diver of the stature and experience of Daley, no matter how in sync they needed to be, Lee was the second member of that team. He knew that and accepted it.

Now Williams, at 22 two years’ Lee’s junior and only a reserve at the Tokyo Olympics, would assume that role.

“Tom led our partnership, I was the apprentice, learning everything from Tom and I learned a lot,” continues Lee.

“So going into the synchro with Noah I was like ‘well I’m the experienced one, I’m the Olympic champion I should now be the senior and lead this team’.

“But that’s not how I work and you’ve got to find the best way how you work and not change because you might jeopardise your training and your competing.

“So it took a while, but we realised I’m not good at leading, I’m good at concentrating on myself. Noah is good with certain things I’m not good with, like timings, writing down plans.

“I’m one of those guys where it’s tell me what to do, I’ll show up and I’ll try and do it.

“It took a while but we found the dynamic.”

And now it’s on to the Paris Olympics, with another world championships in Japan this summer to focus on in the short term.

“At the minute it’s just training, training, training getting ready for this year and the important one next year.

“What keeps me motivated? I enjoy training every day, turning up to the pool, chucking myself around, I still find it enjoyable. It’s what I’m used to, it’s my job, I’d be lost without it.

“I like the challenge of getting good sleep, eating healthily. I like to tick boxes during the day, the simple things.”

After the extreme emotions he has experienced over the last 18 months, Matty Lee is due a little quiet time to perfect his craft once more.