Daley's diving into 2017 with healthy living plan

The shiny gold Academy Award belongs to his California-born screenwriter fiance Dustin Lance Black - and the image perfectly sums up why the 22-year-old diver’s excited about 2017, as he and Black are preparing to tie the knot.

“We’re planning a wedding at the moment - we have an idea when it will happen, but I’m not going to say!” teases Daley, brown eyes twinkling, before revealing the couple were followed by paparazzi on a recent trip to Rome, because of a rumour they were getting married there.

No less exciting than the nuptials is the reason for our chat today - Daley’s first health and fitness book, Tom’s Daily Plan - which he’s been busy signing copies of at bookshops across the length and breadth of the UK.

It’s a very personal book, with recipes from his nan, mum and Lance - and dedicated to his biggest champion, his dad Rob, who died from a brain tumour aged just 40 in 2011. “I never quite managed to get him to fall in love with exercise. But maybe if he saw this book, he would give it a go,” Daley writes.

Today, he fondly recalls: “He was always at the pool for training sessions or any competitions. It was always our dream to go to an Olympic Games and he got to see me go to my first one in 2008, but he never got to see me win an Olympic medal, which we’d always dreamed of being able to do.

“And still the dream is to become an Olympic champion - but there’s a lot of hard work that goes into it, and I’ve got to give it my best over these next four years to try and achieve our dream, that we had so many years ago.”

It’s been three years since Plymouth-born Daley came out as gay in a very honest video on YouTube, which he not long ago retweeted, along with a heart emoji, stating “things have only got better since”.

“I’d built it up to think it was going to be the end of the world, and absolutely horrendous,” he says now. “Once I posted it, once it was out there, I was so overwhelmed by the amount of positive support. One of the things I’m so grateful for is that I haven’t been labelled ‘the gay diver’, which I was most terrified about. I don’t see it anywhere.”

His ultimate goal is gold at Toyko 2020 - but anything after that “depends on how my body holds out”.

“Maybe I’ll be able to carry on for another one after that. I definitely think 2024 will be the very last one, but that’s just because I’ll be 30 then and I’ll be like, ‘OK, let’s have a bit of life outside of that’.”

He displayed natural ease on camera pairing up with Claudia Winkleman to host the Team GB Ball to celebrate our record medal haul last year - does that mean a showbiz career undoubtedly beckons?

“Once I’ve finished diving, I’d love to be a TV presenter,” Daley readily admits, “it’s so much fun and you get to meet so many cool people.”

l Tom’s Daily Plan by Tom Daley is published by HQ, HarperCollins, priced £16.99.