Good Day for 13-year-old Olympic Hopeful

Tom Daley, the 13-year-old diving prodigy from Plymouth, took another significant step towards becoming the youngest athlete to represent Britain in the summer Olympics when he and his partner, Blake Aldridge, won the men's platform synchronized at the British Diving Championships at Manchester Aquatics Center.The teenager, who was voted the BBC young sports personality of the year last month, was a class apart as he and his partner, who is 12 years older than him, hit the water with a series of dives at 30mph from the 10-meter board.

Daley now hopes to move even closer to qualifying for the Games when he competes in the World Cup in Beijing next month. If he finishes in the top eight, Britain will book their place in the event for the Olympics and he will have the chance to return to Beijing in August when he will be 14 years 79 days old when the opening ceremony is held. By London 2012, when he will be 18, Daley should be in pole position to stake a claim to an Olympic title.

Daley became fascinated with the sport from the moment his father, an electrician, took him as a seven-year-old to the local baths. The thrill has stayed with him. 'It is fun every time you go on the board,' Daley said. 'It is exhilarating and exciting. It's just like a roller coaster every time you jump off. '

So far, though, for Daley the only way has been up. Last month he and Aldridge won the 10m synchronized diving gold medal at an international meeting in Montreal, beating fellow Britons Leon Taylor and Peter Waterfield, the Olympic silver medalists in Athens in 2004, the first time they had been beaten by domestic opposition for 10 years.

Taylor acts as Daley's mentor but knows he will miss out on Beijing if he loses to him again at the Olympic trials in Sheffield in June. Daley currently trains four-and-a-half hours a day, fitting it around his studies at Eggbuckland school, where he is known by fellow pupils simply as 'Diver Boy'.

Few have any idea he stands on the verge of history. 'They know I'm a diver but they don't know the standard I have achieved,' he said. Judging by the interest his appearance attracted here - there were five camera crews to watch him - they will do soon. So will the rest of the country.