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Leon Roy Taylor (born 2 November 1977) is a former British competitive diver. During his diving career he won medals at all major international events including a silver at the Athens Olympics. Following his retirement from competition, Taylor transitioned to a portfolio of projects. He now speaks about mental wellness, supports the SportsAid charity, teaches yoga and mental wellness, works for an executive performance business and commentates for the BBC.
Other achievements include Silver in the men's 10 m platform at the 2002 Commonwealth Games (he had won Bronze in 1998), and Bronze in the 10 m synchro at the 1999 European Aquatics Championships. At a national level, Taylor held both the 10 m platform and 10 m synchro titles from 1994 to 2006.
He trained with other members of the British team in the Ponds Forge swimming complex in Sheffield.
In 1998 Leon invented the 5255b; a back 2.5 somersaults, 2.5 twists which at the time was the World's most difficult dive with a tariff of 3.8. Following a rule change in 2009, the dive now carries a tariff of 3.6.
He was awarded an honorary MSc by the University of Chichester in 2005.
Between 2006 – 2008, he completed an HNC (Higher National Certificate) in Business and Finance from Sheffield Hallam University.
Taylor now works as a public speaker, presenter, conference host, BBC commentator and mentor to members of the British team.
In 2010 Taylor published a book on the subject of mentoring: MENTOR - The most important role you were never trained for. This work built on his experience of mentoring many athletes, most notably Olympic medalist Tom Daley.
In January 2013, Taylor was named as a judge on the ITV celebrity diving show Splash!. He returned to judge on the show in its second series, airing in 2014. Taylor had planned, and booked, a once-in-a-lifetime trip to New Zealand with his girlfriend when 'Splash' came about instead.
In 2016 Taylor was part of the BBC commentary team for the diving events at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio and for the 2017 World Aquatics Championships.
In 2018, Taylor spoke at the TEDx Clapham event on the subject of managing prolonged mental stress with the aid of physical movement. He has followed this with a series of videos on the subject of stress.
In March 2020, Taylor led a series of exercise routines for the Headspace mobile app.
Taylor's sporting career became the basis of a children's story novel, Leon's Magic Mantra, authored by Sarah Griffiths, who wrote it in collaboration with Taylor by video call during the COVID pandemic. It was launched in June 2022.Report by Ollie Westbury of book launch in Telford, Shropshire.
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