Queen Elizabeth joked about becoming a gymnast when she met Tom Daley.

Tom Daley

Tom Daley

The 95-year-old monarch and her husband Prince Philip – who died in April aged 99 – hosted a reception at Buckingham Palace in 2016 for a group of Olympians and the 27-year-old diver recalled how the queen joked about her own sporting ambitions.

Speaking on Swedish talk show ‘Skavlan’, Tom said: “She commented on her height compared to some of the other athletes in the room and because me and the other athletes were quite small, she said, ‘Maybe I should try gymnastics’.

“She was fully game to get involved in the sport.”

In 2017, the queen told Olympic medallist Max Whitlock that she loved his sport when she presented the gymnast with his MBE.

Max previously revealed the queen told him she “loved watching the gymnastics because the stuff that we do doesn’t seem possible”.

He added at the time: “It was pretty cool to hear the Queen say she likes the sport.

Last year, the queen spoke with L/Cpl Shanwayne Stephens of the Queen's Colour Squadron and was “quite amused” he’d been keeping fit for the Jamaican bobsleigh team’s Olympic training in lockdown by pushing his girlfriend's Mini Cooper around a Peterborough industrial estate.

Speaking on a video conference, the queen exclaimed "gosh" and said: "I suppose that's one way to train."

Explaining the monarch seemed "quite amused" by the tale, L/Cpl Stephens added: "She had a big smile on her face when I said about pushing the car. I think she was quite impressed with that."

And Shanwayne promised to send the queen a souvenir if she backed his bid to compete in the 2022 Winter Olympics.

He laughed: "I'll have to send her a T-shirt."

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