Thrill-seekers required! Cable car across the Thames gets glass-floor cabins (and sky-high prices)
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BBC News
3 hours ago
- BBC News
Kids' boxing class in Ipswich stirs memories for Nicola Adams
Olympic double gold medallist Nicola Adams said dropping in on a children's club session "brings back memories from when I started boxing".Adams, 42, ran a masterclass at Ipswich Boxing Club in Suffolk on Wednesday, where her uncle Rob Ottley is one of the coaches."It's been a great night - she's got stuck in with everyone, doing pads. The kids loved it," said Mr who became Olympic champion in 2012 and retired in 2019, said seeing the young boxers "makes me relive everything – I almost wanted to get back in the ring". Adams took up boxing as a teenager in West Yorkshire, and said the sport offered young people a sense of purpose."It helped me out a lot when I was younger, growing up on a council estate in Leeds," she said."It gave me focus and drive and something to dedicate my life to."After retaining her flyweight title in Rio in 2016 and turning pro in 2017, Adams stepped down from the sport over fears she could lose her she hasn't lost her passion for the ring."I'm here for the love of boxing, and I like to help out the kids."I think it's always inspiring when you get to see someone in the flesh who's achieved so much in boxing. It gives you so much more motivation," she said. As well as becoming the first ever female Olympic boxing gold medallist in 2012, Adams was also the first open member of the LGBT community to become for her appearance on Strictly Come Dancing alongside Katya Jones, she is the new host of the BBC's LGBT Sport Tierney, the first professional female boxer in Ipswich, was also at the club and trained with Adams."To have someone of her calibre give me advice is mental," she said. "She opened the door for so many young females to consider being pro, let alone boxing."It's absolutely incredible what she's doing for women, gay women, black women. To have met such an amazing woman, let alone a boxer – it's awesome." Mr Ottley, 55, agreed about his niece, who he described as "top drawer"."What an ambassador she is for the sport," he said."We want to see more girls come into this sport."We might get another Nicola Adams, but even if they just want to get fit - great. It's important to get them off the street, doing something productive." Follow Suffolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Telegraph
6 hours ago
- Telegraph
Tom Daley: ‘People don't see how much love we have in our family as same-sex parents'
was just nine years old when he first dived for Great Britain, having started at his local dive club in Plymouth two years earlier. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Daley was Team GB's youngest team member, aged just 14. He has also competed at the London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020, and Paris 2024 games, winning three bronze medals, one silver and one gold. He is a four-time World Champion, a two-time junior World Champion, a five-time European Champion and a four-time Commonwealth Champion. In 2013, Daley announced his relationship with American film screenwriter, director and producer Dustin Lance Black. The couple married in 2017 and now live in LA with their two sons. In August 2024, Daley retired from professional diving and launched his knitting brand, Made With Love. Best thing about representing your country? Growing up, reaching the Olympic Games and representing Team GB had been a childhood dream of mine – to wear the kit, to go to the opening ceremonies. But the best part is having all of the hard work you've done with your team pay off in one moment. Being able to have everybody there to support you. It's a surreal moment when you finally get to do it. Best moment of your career? One is obviously winning the Olympic Gold medal at the Tokyo 2020 Games. That will always be the best thing I'll ever have achieved as a diver. But Tokyo was weird [because of the pandemic]. No one was there. You had your teammates, but gradually as the events went on it would empty out because you had to leave as soon as you'd finished, so it was very surreal by the end. Getting to compete in Paris, in front of my family, was probably one of the things I'll cherish most. It felt like a bonus year for me because I honestly thought I'd retire after Tokyo. I took two years off then came back into the sport. My son inspired me, to be honest. I could say: 'This is fun, I can just enjoy it for what it is' – which was quite a liberating experience. Best personality trait? I am very hard-working and I like to follow through when it comes to my goals. I'm also good at supporting people around me; I understand how much it means for people to reach a goal. Currently it's all about knitting – that has really become my outlet post-diving, so I've been working on lots of patterns and instructions to help people make things. My office is currently a disaster with all kinds of craziness and yarn and things that I've been creating. My older son, Robbie, builds loads of Lego, so while I'm in here knitting, he sits and builds Lego; it's our little creative space. Best thing about becoming a dad? Being able to see everything again for the first time; you appreciate the little things that you'd usually take for granted. When Robbie was very small and we'd go for walks, we'd look up at the trees and he was amazed by them, and you realise that these things you see every day really are amazing, so you gain a new appreciation for them. Plus, it's incredibly special to always be the person they're most excited to see, when your kids come up to you and just want to sit with you, be with you, that's so wonderful. Best thing about coming out? I don't think I would have ever found true happiness if I hadn't come out. It felt like I was constantly putting up a mask of how I wanted other people to perceive me, giving people what I thought they wanted, and it was exhausting. So it was liberating to come out and not have to worry about slipping up, hiding who I was or feeling like I was ashamed. Coming out allowed me to be free and without fear of judgement from anyone. Best thing about knitting? It's my way of being able to switch off from everything. My coach told me I needed to learn to rest and recover, and my husband suggested I should try knitting or crochet because that's what he'd seen people doing on film sets while they were waiting. I fired up YouTube to learn, gave it a go and became obsessed. I look forward to the time I have to knit – it's just so calming. The two best knits I've done are my Olympic jumpers, which I have hanging in my office. I made one in Tokyo which started it all off, then I made another in Paris – to have these things for the rest of my life from the Olympics, which I made… I think that's pretty cool. Best celebrity encounter you've ever had? The person who I think is genuinely the nicest, smartest, kindest, most selfless, most generous and all-round lovely human being is Emma Watson. She's everything you imagine or hope she'd be. We'd spoken online but only met a few years ago at some event and we hit it off. Obviously – on a much greater level than me – she became very famous very young, so we spoke about what that was like for each of us. I will always feel very privileged to know Emma. However, the one I was most starstruck by was Gemma Collins, who I taught to dive on ITV's Splash! She's hilarious. Whenever she's in a room with anyone, she just commands the space, it's quite incredible really. Worst thing about diving? Getting wet. I know that comes with the territory but in the mornings, especially in the winter and especially when I was training in outdoor pools in LA, it gets quite cold. It'd be maybe eight degrees and I'd have to get in the pool and do all of my dives outside. The moment when you first get in that cold pool and get wet, that was always the worst bit. Plus the chlorine. I always say I'm wearing my signature cologne: eau de chlorine. Worst personality trait? I'm a stickler for a schedule; I like to know what I'm doing, where I'm going. I think it's the athlete in me who likes a plan and likes to be able to do things on time, whereas my husband is very much on the more creative side. He's like: 'Let's just go with the flow, let's see what time we get there.' It drives me mad. I'm one of those people who gets mad at my husband when we're running late for the imaginary schedule I have in my head, which I haven't told him about. Worst thing that has ever been written about you? People always have their opinions. I don't think there's ever anything that's been too crazy bad. The things I take to heart most are if anybody writes anything about us as parents – I struggle with that. Some people don't necessarily see how much love we have in our family as same-sex parents and how we really want to do the best we can to be the best parents we can. So when anybody writes anything negative about me or my husband as parents, that hits pretty hard. But also I know the way that it goes with social media – it is what it is. It's just an opinion someone has, so whatever. Worst thing about competing for Team GB? A lot of pressure to perform. That's kind of what makes it fun, too, but when I was younger I used to find it difficult to deal with. There's a lot of guilt if you don't achieve what you'd hoped to achieve – you feel like you've really let people down. I suppose there's always perspective; there's always something going on in your life which feels more stressful that puts other things into perspective. I was doing my A-Levels in 2012 while training for the Olympics. Whenever I was doing schoolwork that felt more stressful than diving, and whenever I was diving that felt more stressful than A-Levels. Since becoming a parent, I've been able to realise that my family will love me regardless of how I perform, so the pressure stops mattering so much. Worst thing about becoming a household name so young? Whenever I was out of the house I was always 'on'. I never knew who might be watching. Not that I wanted to do anything too crazy, but you're always hyper-vigilant about everything rather than just being able to be present and in the moment with your friends. I struggled with that a lot. I'm grateful for all the cool things I was able to do as a result, but there's always that feeling that there was somebody watching what I was doing at all times. That was tough. Worst childhood memory? In terms of my young childhood, I used to get really homesick when I was away competing. One time I was in Australia; I was 10 years old, on the other side of the planet, jet-lagged, not able to sleep, and I remember feeling incredibly homesick. I used to love being at the competition, but as soon as it was night-time there'd be so much time to overthink, I'd downward spiral. My parents would always reassure me that I didn't have to go if I didn't want to but I did want to, so eventually I grew out of it. Worst thing about wearing Speedos so much? You're very exposed. Growing up I never really thought about it, because it was just the uniform – and they do work: nothing falls out of place when you're hitting the water at 35mph. But, when I got a bit older, I was told by my performance directors that I had to get in better shape and suddenly I felt quite exposed. Still, it's part and parcel of diving. There aren't many people who wear more clothes to bed than they do to work, so that was fun. Worst annoyance? You know what drives me mad? When you go to wash the dishes in the sink, and someone leaves a bunch of bits of food in the plughole which you have to fish out. Usually I'll cook and Lance does the dishes, and his idea of doing the dishes is taking them from the table and putting them in the sink. Personally, I'd think about putting them in the dishwasher. I try to be very mindful about the amount of dishes I use, whereas when he cooks he uses every single cooking utensil in the world and leaves it for me to clean up. Whether you're gay or straight, there's always someone in every relationship who has to deal with that, I think.
The Guardian
6 hours ago
- The Guardian
Federal government throws support behind LNP's controversial new Olympic Games venue at Brisbane's Victoria Park
The federal government has thrown its support behind a controversial new Olympic Games venue at Victoria Park in Brisbane planned by the Queensland government. The 63,000-seat venue – to be the city's largest stadium – will host the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2032 Olympics and cost $3.8bn. The federal infrastructure minister, Catherine King, appeared at a Queensland Media Club event with the deputy premier, Jarrod Bleijie, on Thursday to announce the commonwealth would commit $3.4bn in funding for Games infrastructure. The commonwealth will reallocate funding away from the planned Brisbane Live Arena to the new stadium. 'For us, this is about ensuring that when we hand the keys back after the closing ceremony, Queensland has the infrastructure it needs to build on its incredible legacy for decades to come,' King said. The Queensland government and Brisbane city council will develop a new precinct plan for the area with a focus on access to green space, she said. It will serve as the home of AFL and cricket once the Games are over. King said appropriate consultation would also be undertaken with stakeholders, including affected communities and First Nations groups. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Victoria Park holds historical significance, particularly for Brisbane's Indigenous community. The area was used as a town camp for decades and is a massacre site. Bleijie said he was confident of reaching an agreement with local Indigenous groups over use of the site. Parliament passed legislation last month to permit the government to override the cultural heritage act if a deal cannot be reached. 'Part of the deal that we've struck with the federal government is … that that consultation does take place,' Bleijie said. 'I'm confident we'll secure support, and we'll just go through the motions.' Neither state nor federal governments announced their position on the Victoria Park stadium before going to the polls in recent months. The premier, David Crisafulli, ruled out building a new stadium and ruled out building one at Victoria Park before last October's state election. He apologised in March. Asked on Thursday, Bleijie said there was no alternative to the change, because no other site was suitable. The new deal meant the planned 17,000-seat Brisbane Live Arena, near the city's Roma Street Parkland, had now lost all public financial support. It was initially planned to host swimming, which would now be held in a new facility at Centenary Pool in Spring Hill, within walking distance of Victoria Park. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion King said the federal government had decided to shift funding away from the venue after the state government had excluded it. But Bleijie said the arena would still be delivered in time for the Olympics, on a new site next to the old Gabba stadium in Brisbane's south. He said the department would go to formal procurement by the end of the year, with construction under way by the end of 2026 'and into 2027'. 'We absolutely will partner with the private sector. We will go to procurement on the Brisbane arena by the end of this year,' he said. It would be funded by a deal for development of the site of the Gabba cricket ground, which would be torn down. Bleijie said works on Victoria Park were also imminent, with geotechnical and other preparatory work on the site already under way, as of Thursday. The estimated cost of $3.785bn for Victoria Park did not include 'associated precinct and transport infrastructure costs'. The Games venues would cost $7.1bn overall, split evenly between the two levels of government. They would construct 17 new or upgraded venues, including the new National Aquatic Centre at Spring Hill.
