From Olympian to inspiration: Yona Knight-Wisdom's legacy-building mission to grow diving in Jamaica

Yona Knight-Wisdom laughs at the suggestion as it’s presented to him.

“I mean, there's definitely a few stories,” the 29-year-old recently retired diver says to Olympics.com, smiling at the thought of boasting some of the best-ever dinner table anecdotes from his impressive Olympic career.

As Jamaica’s first and only-ever male diver, with three Olympic Games under his belt, he has been in the unique position to have crossed paths with some of the most renowned sporting athletes in history.

“One of them, being stuck outside of the village in Rio because the security systems have gone down, and there’s this massive scrum of athletes. Then I saw Michael Phelps in the distance, and I thought, alright this is my opportunity to get a picture,” he recalls.

“Another one was obviously with Usain Bolt being part of Team Jamaica, hearing a load of volunteers singing happy birthday to him on the last day of Rio.

“Me going down and figuring out where his room was in relation to my room, going back up to my room and then making the trek to his room then just walking in and then chatting to him and Asafa [Powell] and getting a couple of 'S' signs one of which I've got on my wall.”

It did, by Knight-Wisdom's own admission, take a little while to get used to mingling with Jamaica’s finest.

Born in Leeds, England, he first decided to represent his father’s home country back in 2012 after years of going through the British Diving pathway. It led to his debut for the Caribbean Island at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

Knight-Wisdom remembers introducing himself to some of Jamaica's track and field team with a mixture of timidity and shyness: “I'm very English. I grew up English. My dad didn't teach me a Jamaican accent when I was growing up.

“I felt so out of place and so uncomfortable,” he continues, “but I just wanted to meet them because Warren Weir was in the room, the Olympic bronze medalist from London, and just wanted to kind of be around them and see what they're all about.”

Ten years on from Knight-Wisdom's trepidatious debut, the diver has gone from outsider to leader after being named co-captain of Team Jamaica for the Olympic Games Paris 2024 along with sprint star Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.

In his third consecutive Olympic experience, he found himself being sought out and approached for advice by other Jamaican athletes.

For the diver, it was not only a satisfying end to something of a full-circle moment but also a quiet reminder of his years of competing at the top level: “It was quite enjoyable to see myself in that role: as someone to look up to rather than someone looking up to others.”

"I have to do it" - Knight-Wisdom on competing at Paris 2024

Paris 2024 ultimately ended for Knight-Wisdom in the men’s 3m springboard semi-final. His six qualification dives totalled a score of 412.40, leaving him an agonising 3.8 points short of the top 12 progressing through to the final.

It was, by a whisker, that the Jamaican co-captain's Games – and diving career - came to an end. But having sensed even before arriving in Paris that he was in the twilight of his competitive years, a balanced Knight-Wisdom is far from begrudging of his ending.

A cocktail of reasons, including a serious knee injury in October 2022 and his coach transitioning into management, meant continuing past Paris would have been an uphill struggle for the Jamaican in addition to the toll diving was taking on him with each passing day.

Booking his place at the Games in France in light of the injury had been, in itself, a significant achievement for the diver. Calling it quits in the City of Light felt the right thing to do.

“I qualified for Rio by six points. I made it into the automatic spots by six points, and that helped to set not only my career, but my approach to sports because that competition really made me. And in Paris, I missed out on making the final by less than four points. So, the margins are slim either way and it could have very much been the other way round.

“It felt like an opportunity to retire on my own terms at the highest level, which I think for most athletes is a dream, and not many actually get the options to take. I felt like it was presented to me, especially after I qualified, I was like, I have to take this. I have to do it.”

Building a lasting connection

Such is the nature of retirement that talk of legacy seems the logical next step, but for Knight-Wisdom, the question of what footprint shape he would leave behind began well before thoughts of stepping back came to be.

It started first with his father: “My dad always told me that I couldn't just represent and then not leave anything behind. It had to be a connection,” Knight-Wisdom recalls.

“It took me a while to understand what he meant but I felt a growing responsibility to make sure that something diving-related was left in Jamaica after I retired because it was 44 years before me that the last Olympic diver competed for Jamaica, and I didn't want it to be another 44 years after me. And I've got a unique position where I can make something happen with it.”

Leaning into his stewardship role, a year before his retirement in 2023, Knight-Wisdom decided to test the waters by hosting a diving camp out of his own pocket in the Jamaican capital of Kingston.

He opened the week-long course up to anyone who might be interested not knowing what the reception would be like.

After some happy attendees and positive feedback, Knight-Wisdom was encouraged by the outcome and decided to host another longer camp the following summer. The result this time was a two-week-long course attended by a blend of children and adults all hoping to uncover something new.

By the end of the camp, even the adults were launching themselves off the 10m platform much to the amazement of their coach.

“It was really rewarding seeing them progress through the program and knowing that I had a major part to play in that. It was awesome,” Knight-Wisdom shares of the project.

“There was some genuine raw talent in there. There was one girl in particular who is just one of those kids that has the ability to be good in anything that she wants to do. They all made a little video afterwards to say thank you. It was really nice.”

Challenging for change in Jamaica

Following another successful outing, Knight-Wisdom will again hold another camp in the summer of 2025, but his vision has also broadened in scope.

The Olympian’s ambition is now to find the support to create a team and a community that wants to be part of diving, day in, day out, and all year round; building something sustainable and lasting.

“My goal with it is to create a proposal which has a vision that people want to get behind,” he explains.

“What I kind of want to do is, through showing how a diving program can be successful with the right expertise, the right guidance, and the right support, ask why that can’t be done for a number of other sports if the provisions are put in place? You know, linking it to the strengths of Jamaica, which are sport, tourism, and just beauty, and try to combine all of that to create something that is attractive for tourists, attractive for sports tourism, but also works in the community to develop athletes from grassroots all the way to an elite level without them having to leave to go train somewhere else because there's not the provisions there or the support available.”

Knight-Wisdom is under no illusion that his goal will require support and buy-in from other stakeholders, but with a willing team on the ground, and knowledge that there is enthusiasm out there, he believes Jamaica can build itself a real sporting pantheon beyond just track and field.

“I see a huge opportunity because Jamaican people love sport," he says.

"It kicks off over there every single Olympics. And even though the track athletes didn't quite deliver this summer, they would have been right behind their field athletes. People were staying up until 2:00 am or waking up at 3:00 am to watch me compete, which is amazing, and I would love to see Jamaica really embrace that before the reputation that they have, because of the likes of Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser Pryce, dies.

“They can’t just wait for another sporting superstar to come through. At some point, they need to really try and create their own.”

If it sounds ambitious, it is. But Knight-Wisdom is not deterred by the challenge.

And he's not waiting around for others to act either.

Aside from his legacy-building project, the Jamaican has recently moved from Leeds to the English capital in the hunt for a coaching role at the Stratford Olympic Park, home of London 2012. In between times, he is also working on his craft as a public speaker.

It all amounts to a busy kind of retirement, but the undeniable thread that runs through it all is diving – the sport that has fundamentally transformed Knight Wisdom’s life.

Now, he is committed to using it as a force to influence others.

“I’m hoping to find opportunities to share my story, to spread the word of diving and make diving a more popular sport.”