| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | 17 August 1973 Luton, England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Antonio "Tony" Pietro Ally (born Ali, 17 August 1973) is a British diver.
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | 17 August 1973 Luton, England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Antonio "Tony" Pietro Ally (born Ali, 17 August 1973) is a British diver.
Ally was brought up in Catford, London. He was diagnosed with a hearing disorder during childhood. When he was nine, his brother died and later reasoned that hearing his brother's voice "spurred him on for 19 years". He used to enjoy kickboxing as a child but only as a means of training. [1] He moved to Sheffield in 1992 and trained at Ponds Forge, a leisure complex. [2]
Ally won his first senior national championship when he was aged 12, with coaching being done by lip-reading, as Ally expressed being too proud to wear "old, ugly, cumbersome" hearing aids in his earlier years. [1] Around the same time, he represented Great Britain in Strasbourg and beat all his competition. [2]
In Ally's first Olympic Games he competed in the 1996 men's 3 metre springboard at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atalanta, United States. Four years later he competed in the 2000 men's 3 metre springboard and qualified for the final, finishing in 12th place. He also competed in the synchronized event with Mark Shipman and came seventh. [3]
At the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta he and his teammate Bob Morgan publicised the plight of British athletes and the lack of funded support by publicly selling his British Olympic Team kit to pay off loans. This gained notoriety in the British newspapers, being seen as the nadir of an already poor British performance that saw the GB team finish 36th in the medal table, winning a single gold medal. It was regularly cited as an example of how poorly funded British sport was before lottery funding of athletes was introduced in time for the 2000 Summer Olympics. [4] [5] [6] Leon Taylor, a British diver who won a silver medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics, suggested that Morgan & Ally's actions shamed the British Olympic Association into arranging for more professional funding of British Olympians. [6]
Ally competed in five Commonwealth Games winning four medals. He represented England in the springboard and platform events, at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, New Zealand, [7] his first of five Commonwealth Games appearances. In 1998 he was a bronze medalist in the 3 metres springboard, at the Games in Kuala Lumpur. He followed this success up by winning double silver in 2002 before going on to be the flag bearer for the English contingent in 2006 in Melbourne where he won another silver medal in the synchronized three metre springboard. [8] [9]
Ally won gold in the European Championships for the three metre event in 1999, [10] being the first British diver to win the medal. [1] The achievement came just a year after a significant motorbike accident in Italy and is considered by Ally as being among his most memorable sporting moments. [2]
Ally's diving club is the City of Sheffield.[ citation needed ]
Outside of diving, Ally also trained in boxing, having said during a 2005 interview that he wished he had taken up the sport 20 years earlier. After being urged by a friend, he started training around 2002 in the St Thomas' Boys Club gym, where former world super-featherweight champion Naseem Hamed also trained. Ally attributed his healthier lifestyle to boxing, having lost 2 stone (28 lb; 13 kg) and significantly reduced his body fat. Despite being keen to take up boxing professionally, he was apprehensive about the risk of losing his lottery funding that financed his diving career, noting that he would have already turned to boxing if it weren't for that. [1]
During a holiday in Italy in 1998, Ally was involved in a motorbike accident which almost destroyed all muscles in his right arm. The damage was severe enough that surgeons needed to take muscle from his forearm and regrow it. [2]
Ally appeared on The Million Pound Drop Live on 8 October 2011, and lost.[ citation needed ]
On 11 August 2012, he appeared on BBC News Live programme, [11] as part of a panel discussion about Tom Daley's diving progression. Ally worked as the Assistant Head Coach of diving at Sheffield Diving Club from 2016 to 2023, after which he moved to Perth to work as a diving coach for Diving Western Australia. [12] [13]
Émilie-Joane Heymans is a Canadian diver. She was born in Brussels, Belgium and raised in Greenfield Park, a suburb of Montreal. Heymans has won four Olympic medals, two bronze and two silver. She was the first female diver to win medals in four consecutive Olympic games and the first Canadian to win medals in four consecutive Olympics. Heymans also is a one time world champion and has won four Pan American championships as well as one Commonwealth Games championship. In addition she has won multiple medals in all three of these competitions.
Alexandre Despatie OLY is a Canadian diver and broadcaster from Laval, Quebec. He was the world champion at the 1 and 3 m springboards from 2005 to 2007 and is the first, and so far only, diver to have been world champion in all three individual categories. He is also a 37-time Canadian senior diving champion and nine-time junior champion, and the most decorated male diver in Canadian history, winning two Olympic silver medals and reaching eight podiums at the world championships, including three gold medals. He was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Wu Minxia is a retired Chinese diver, specializing in the 1 metre and 3 metre springboard, and synchronized 3 metre springboard events. Entering her first major championship in 2001, Wu represented China at every Asian Games, Olympic Games and FINA World Aquatics Championships through 2016. She is an eight-time world champion, and a five-time Olympic and Asian champion, making her one of the most decorated divers in history.
Mark Shipman is a male retired British diver. Mark attended Guiseley School. He is divorced with 2 teenage girls. Aeryn Anna Shipman and Anaïs Kirsten Shipman. Mark currently lives in South Africa and travels to the UK frequently.
Thomas Robert Daley is an English retired diver, YouTuber and television personality. He is an Olympic champion in the men's synchronised 10-metre platform event at the 2020 Olympics and double world champion in the FINA 10-metre platform event, winning in 2009 at the age of fifteen, and again in 2017. He is an Olympic bronze medallist in the 2012 platform event, the 2016 synchronised event, and the 2020 platform event, He won the silver medal in the men's synchronised 10-metre at the 2024 Olympics, making him the first British diver to win 5 Olympic medals. Daley also competes in team events, winning the inaugural mixed team World title in 2015, and repeating the win in 2024, his fourth World title in all. He is an Olympic champion, four-time World Champion, a two-time junior World Champion, a five-time European champion and four-time Commonwealth champion.
Matthew John Mitcham OAM is an Australian retired diver and trampolinist. As a diver, he was the 2008 Olympic champion in the 10m platform, and he is the 2nd highest single-dive score in Olympic history. This made him the first openly gay athlete to win an Olympic gold medal. He is also the first Australian male to win an Olympic gold medal in diving since Dick Eve at the 1924 Summer Olympics.
Robert Morgan is a retired Welsh diver, who competing for Wales and Great Britain is best known for winning a bronze and a silver medal in the men's 10 m platform at the European Championships in the early 1990s, and the first Welsh diver to win gold at the Commonwealth Games.
Jennifer Abel is a Canadian former diver. She is currently partnered with Mélissa Citrini-Beaulieu for synchronized diving. She won an Olympic bronze medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the 3 m synchro diving event with Émilie Heymans and a silver medal at the 2020 Summer Olympics in the same event with Melissa Citrini-Beaulieu. Abel is a four-time Commonwealth Games champion in the 1 m and 3 m synchronized springboard; and is also a three-time Pan American Games champion in the 3 m springboard and 3 m synchronized springboard. Her ten medals at the FINA World Championships are a record for most medals by a Canadian in diving at the world championships.
Jack David Laugher is a British diver competing for Great Britain and England. A specialist on springboard, he competes in individual springboard events, and in synchronised events with Chris Mears, Daniel Goodfellow and Anthony Harding. Laugher and Mears became Britain's first diving Olympic champions by winning a gold medal in the men's synchronised 3m springboard event at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, an achievement many had expected double world 10m champion Tom Daley would achieve first. A week later, Laugher won a silver in the men's individual 3m springboard at the same Games, becoming the first British diver to win multiple Olympic diving medals at the same Games.
Anabelle "Belle" Smith is an Australian diver. She is the 2022 Commonwealth Games champion in the 3 metre synchronized springboard. She competed in the 3 m springboard synchronized event at the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Summer Olympics. She won a bronze medal in 2016, and was placed fifth in 2012.
Ilya Leonidovich Zakharov is a Russian diver and politician. He is the 2012 Olympics gold medalist in 3 metre Springboard.
Christopher James Mears is a British diver and DJ/Producer from Burghfield Common, near Reading, Berkshire. He competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in the synchronised 3m springboard event with Jack Laugher and won gold, the first Olympic gold medal for Britain in diving.
Great Britain participated at the 2015 European Games, in Baku, Azerbaijan from 12 to 28 June 2015. As this was the inaugural Games, this was Great Britain's first appearance.
Oliver Dingley is an international diver who represents Ireland. He represented Ireland at the 2016 Summer Olympics. In doing so, he became the first Irish Diver to compete at the Olympics in 68 years. RTÉ's highest rating sports event at the 2016 Olympics was Dingley's 3m springboard final, with an average of 388,000 viewers. Dingley has won numerous national and international medals.
Great Britain competed at the 2015 World Aquatics Championships in Kazan, Russia between 24 July to 9 August 2015.
Jordan Christopher Houlden is an English diver from the City Of Sheffield Diving Club. He is a silver medalist of the 2022 European Diving Championships.
James Philip Heatly is a British diver.
Noah Oliver Williams is an English elite competitive diver who represents Great Britain and England and specialises in the 10 metre platform and synchro platform events. Williams took the bronze medal in the 10 metre platform at the 2024 Summer Olympics, the third British diver to do so in that event. In the 10 metre synchronised event at the same Games, Williams won silver with partner Tom Daley.
Alison Jean Drake is a female former diver who competed for England. She competed at the 1972 Summer Olympics and the 1980 Summer Olympics.
Yasmin Isis Harper is a British diver. She won a bronze medal in the 3m synchro springboard event at the 2024 Summer Olympics.