Tom Daley's physio: going out on a high

Diving for gold

After the excitement of the Paris Olympics, where his 18-hour days helped Team GB divers Tom Daley and Noah Williams to silver medals, Gareth Ziyambi is enjoying a breather.          

‘The four-year commitment to the Olympics is very intense so it’s nice to take a break, relax, and look at the options,’ he tells me in café near his clinic, A2Z Elite Health and Performance, in London’s well-heeled Hampstead.

For Gareth, this summer in Paris was a poignant moment. Tom announced his retirement, marking the end of their professional relationship that started 17 years ago when the fledgling phenomenon was just 13. 

‘I have seen him grow up over all those years. His first competition was 2007 when it was recognised, he was on different trajectory than anyone else,’ Gareth says in a soft spoken but confident voice.

They have come through a lot, injuries, the pressures of celebrity, the loss of Tom’s father, and preparation for one last hurrah in Paris. So, was a silver medal in the men’s synchronised 10 metres, a bit of a let-down?

‘Oh no, silver was something of a triumph,’ Gareth says, as he explains the relatively short amount of time the pair had to work together. Tom moved to the US, a time zone eight hours apart from his relatively new dive partner Noah.

Overall I look at what can I measure, what can I do in terms of pain relief and what can I do in terms of rehabilitation and strengthening – that’s where key areas of technology can be used.

‘They dived together for the first time last November in a warm-up competition, then they had to qualify for an Olympic place two months later. Other competitions followed, plus both had the usual niggles and injuries. And Tom has two children so couldn’t be away from home for long periods. And it wasn’t ideal training in different centres let alone in different countries. Three years ago, Noah lost his coach, who died in a tragic training accident, so he had to get used to a new coach. We also sadly lost our gymnastics coach who provided an integral part of the dryland training programme soon after this. When you put it all together silver was a remarkable achievement – and that’s only possible because it’s Tom.’

Winning mentality

Tom became a sensation aged just 10, winning a British national junior title in 2004, victory at the European Championships in 2008, World Championship golds in 2009, 2015 (alongside Rebecca Gallantree in the team event) and 2017, two golds at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, a bronze at the London 2012 Olympics, another Olympic bronze at Rio 2016 (alongside Dan Goodfellow), and finally gold alongside Matty Lee in the men’s 10 metres synchronised at Tokyo 2020.

Gareth says Tom was always focused on excelling and is ‘very intelligent’. 

‘He wants to know exactly what I am doing and why, and he has a very good knowledge of his body and how it works.’

That desire to excel permeates everything he does – from publishing three cookbooks to setting up a knitwear company. ‘He wants to be good at everything.’ Gareth approves of a wide range of interests. ‘If you have a bad training day there is something else to focus on.’

Tom’s celebrity status never creates any tensions within Team GB, as the team is his priority. ‘With people asking for autographs he will apologise and say, “I’m sorry I can’t do anymore”,’ Gareth says.

‘He makes sure he does all that is required of the team.’

Data revolution

Summing up the difference between his first Olympics in 2006 – where Gareth was a physio for his homeland Zimbabwe – and Paris 2024, he says it is ‘data’. 

‘We know a lot more now,’ he explains. ‘The amount of data available to us is vast and the things we use to measure performance are much smaller than before and the data can be available to use immediately. All that information has changed training - how we train and how much we train. We are not just waiting for someone to be injured - we are planning, testing and monitoring. 

‘In the past we would test athletes at the beginning of and at a couple of intervals during the season, now we monitor things like muscle strength at least weekly, and some parameters we monitor daily. This helps our understanding of how training can cause muscle fatigue and injury but also how we can ensure we are on the path to peak performance.

‘There is a big shift in understanding. And physios are now working much closer with athletes. There is a lot of integration of physios in training sessions and much closer relations with coaches.’

Gareth went to the Paris games with £35,000 worth of equipment including force plates, which show how much pressure athletes generate and how high they are jumping to give an idea of whether they are close to peak performance. 

‘For example, if Tom jumps and wins a medal, I can say that on the day you won the medal this is what your jumps are like. In 2004 we didn’t have those. Now we can have a picture of what peak form looks like.’

Gareth says the demands of diving put pressure on the whole body – with back, wrist, neck and shoulder injuries common – as is concussion, which was under-reported in the past ‘but now has very strict monitoring protocols’. 

‘You are taking off on your feet and landing with your hands in a very short time span. You accelerate to about 35kph so it’s a hard impact.’

To help manage Gareth’s dual purpose of improving performance and reducing the risk and treating injury, he utilises a wide range of tools including blood flow restriction training, which involves the use of pneumatic cuffs applied to the limbs at specific pressures to limit the blood flow and there oxygen to the muscles during resistance exercise. This has the effect of triggering the processes to strengthen muscles but using much lower resistance loads than traditional resistance training requires. 

Tecar therapy - high frequency/radio-frequency current - is used to accelerate healing and replace damaged tissue; shock wave therapy is used for tendons. And dry needling and flywheel resistance training is for improving eccentric muscle strength, increases blood flow and reduces pain.

‘Overall, I look at what can I measure, what can I do in terms of pain relief and what can I do in terms of rehabilitation and strengthening – that’s where key areas of technology can be used,’ he adds.

Black History Month

Gareth was born in Zimbabwe in 1974 and qualified as a sports physio in 1987, before working with the Zimbabwe Olympic teams in 2004 and 2008. He came to the UK in 2004 under an initiative to help reduce NHS waiting lists. A post came up at the English Institute for Sport, work for British Diving followed and his career blossomed.

The Olympics is a time of intense mental and physical stress for everyone involved, so Gareth emphasizes the importance of relaxation – for him it is photography. Gareth is the ‘official unofficial’ British diving team photographer. 

As October is Black History Month I ask if he thinks sport is becoming more inclusive in roles off the track, pitch or pool? But he shakes his head. 

‘There is a lot spoken about it but not really. In Black History Month there is a lot of talk about widening representation, but this needs to happen all year round and not just be talked about during one month. 

‘To have an impact, we should be able to focus on great physios (who happen to be Black) at any time of the year, rather than it just being pigeonholed to one time of the year.’ 

When applying for jobs Gareth always felt at a disadvantage. ‘Even though I have a high bar and want to do the best, the bar is set higher for me,’ he said. ‘I have come with ideas to improve and change things and I’ve been told I haven’t had enough experience yet; you need to get established. 

‘Yet I see someone (white) with far less experience in every sense come in and they are told “that’s a great idea, let’s run with it”.  There is simply a different set of standards still.’