Tom Daley, 13 years and 10 months to the day and the youngest member of the Great Britain team for the Olympic Games this summer, peered down at the diving pool with intense interest here yesterday. His focus was on Dimitri Sautin, one of the greats of diving, who is aiming for his sixteenth European Championships medal since 1991.

The Russian, 34, had won three of those before Daley was born and was world and Olympic champion before the teenager from Plymouth had learnt to swim, let alone leap from the ten-metre platform. Daley was only 8 when he attended the national championships, by which time Sautin had retired from the platform - after winning Olympic gold in 1996 and bronze in 2000 - to concentrate on the springboard. Known as “The Man”, Sautin provided a masterclass for Daley to soak up: the three-metre springboard crown brought his eleventh European gold medal and made him the oldest champion in the sport's history.

At the other end of the spectrum, Daley's youth may be causing a stir back home, but his presence at his first big multisport championship, alongside world record-holders in the race pool, is barely registering a ripple. Fu Mingxia, of China, was 12 when she won her first world title, her victory prompting a rule change that restricts Olympic and world competition to athletes who are 14 in the year of the event. She was Olympic champion at 14, while Nils Skoglund, of Sweden, remains the youngest medal-winner in Olympic history since claiming the silver in the plain high diving at the 1920 Games in Antwerp, aged 14 years and 11 days.

Daley will be 14 years and 79 days when the Games open in Beijing. He will compete with his diving partner, Blake Aldridge, in the ten-metre platform synchronised tomorrow and a day later he will hop off the tenmetre board in the solo event as the youngest male diver for more than 20 years at the event. When he talks of getting to stay up late because the swimming events dictate an 8.45pm start in one of his finals, the thrill shows in his face. “It's my first senior European Championships and the first time I have competed alongside a major swimming meet. I'm enjoying the late starts,” Daley said. “They shouldn't matter as long as you're in the right mindset.”

Among those keeping Daley up past his bedtime are the pre-selected Britain Olympians, David Davies (1,500metres freestyle) and Kirsty Balfour (200metres breaststroke), who yesterday reached their finals, to be staged today. Balfour, the defending European champion, said Daley's age was hardly relevant. “It's brilliant that he's there,” she said. “He's done the performance to get on the team, so he deserves it. That's what it's all about.”

Coached by Andy Banks in Plymouth, Daley, 1.37m (4ft 6in) and 34kg (about 5st 5lb), qualified for the Olympic Games at a World Cup event in Beijing in January. “It's been hard coming back from Beijing and then back into training,” Daley said. “We came from such a high and then had to refocus on this competition. But I've been working hard in training and am now focused on my performance this weekend. Getting the bronze medal in the ten-metre synchro [in Beijing] with Blake was amazing and I think we can get a good result over here, too.”

Alain Bernard, of France, broke the men's 100metres freestyle world record at the European Championships yesterday. Bernard recorded a time of 47.60sec to beat the mark set by Pieter van den Hoogenband, of the Netherlands, at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

Politics spilt into the pool when Milorad Cavic, champion in the 50metres butterfly on Wednesday in a European record of 23.11sec, was suspended from the rest of the event. His misdemeanour: wearing a T-shirt declaring “Kosovo is Serbia” while collecting his gold medal. The European Swimming League fined the Serbian Swimming Federation €7,000 (about £5,450) and barred Cavic, who was born and lives in the United States, from competing. Cavic broke federation Rule 15, governing “safety and security” at the championships, according to the disciplinary panel.

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