Olympic competitors are no different from the rest of us when they have hours of downtime between tasks.
Tom Daley has a creative way to spend hours waiting and calming his nerves at the Toyko Olympics — knitting.
Daley went viral with his knitting needles as he knitted and purled his way through the competition putting together a pink, purple and blue pouch, NPR reported.
It turned out he was creating a dog sweater during the women’s springboard diving event, CNN reported.
It was made as a gift for Izzy, the French bulldog, Entertainment Weekly reported.
Daley has been knitting so long that he has an Instagram account dedicated to showing off his creations, including a medal cozy he stitched together after his gold medal win. He’s also created scarves and hats for his son, The Washington Post reported.
He said he picked up the knitting needles and crochet hooks in March 2020 to get through the coronavirus lockdown, CNN reported.
Daley said knitting is his way of “finding calm, mindfulness and [it] relieves stress, NPR reported.
He even uses his dog sweater creations to raise money for charity.
Daley’s next big project is a team cardigan, The Washington Post reported.
Update (to the update): he is knitting a Team GB cardigan pic.twitter.com/znJRtPHpLl
— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) August 2, 2021
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