Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix’s dad is First Dates star and why she’s competing for Team GB

Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix, daughter of First Dates legend Fred Sirieix, is being tipped to make waves at her second Olympic Games. The 19-year-old athlete is one of Team GB's top contenders for a diving medal, having already secured podium finishes at world-level events in her burgeoning career.

Spendolini-Sirieix will make her bow at the Paris Olympics on Wednesday (July 31), competing in both the high-dive 10m synchronised and individual disciplines as she aims to do her father, 52, proud in his native France. The young diver will first compete in the 10m synchronised platform final alongside fellow Brit Lois Toulson as she hopes to secure her first Olympic medal.

The BBC's Young Sports Personality of the Year for 2017 will then participate in the qualifying rounds for the individual 10m event on August 5, with potential further success in the finals if she qualifies. Since her impressive seventh-placed finish in the individual event at Tokyo 2020 at just 16, Spendolini-Sirieix has enjoyed a string of successes.

These include gold medals at the World Junior Championship and Commonwealth Games in 2022, as well as a bronze at this year's World Championship in Doha. A medal at the Paris Games is certainly within reach for this rising star.

Instead of competing for her dad's native France, Spendolini-Sirieix will represent Team GB, having been born in London in September 2004. She could have also represented Italy, the country of her mother, Alex Spendolini's birth.

Her parents are no longer together but will be united in their support of Andrea, who is determined to make her family proud. She said: "Every competition I do, my family's always in my heart. 

"I always do my best to make them proud. They would watch three-and-a-half hour, four-hour training sessions and have sacrificed so much for me.

"So the medals that I have, I bring back and give straight to them because it's like, I'm competing but I want to give back as much as I possibly can to my family. Preparations are going really well. I'm taking it one day at a time, training one dive at a time.

Fred Sirieix - who is renowned for his stints on Channel 4's First Dates and ITV's I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! - will be among the family party cheering her on in Paris.