Great Britain were the toast of the European Championships last night when Tom Daley, 13, became the youngest European diving champion on record and the medley relay quartet shattered the European record in the pool.

At 5ft 2in and 7st 7lb, Daley was on average nine years younger, seven inches shorter and 40lb lighter than the 11 other finalists in the ten-metre platform final. Daley outperformed Gleb Galperin, the world champion from Russia, who finished ninth, and Sascha Klein, the World Cup winner from Germany, who came second, to claim victory four months before he heads to Beijing as the youngest member of the Britain Olympic team.

“It’s amazing to be European champion ahead of that kind of field,” Daley said. “It’s totally unexpected. It’s thrilling, like being on a theme-park ride.” He ensured that the record for the youngest diving champion remained in Britain: the previous record for the youngest male winner was held by Brian Phelps, the platform winner in Budapest in 1958, aged 14 years, four months and 134 days. Britain’s previous European diving champion was Tony Ali in 1999.

After the third dive of six, the teenager was in sixth place after blowing one of his easiest dives. “I missed it and I was worried I might not be able to get back up,” Daley said. But he donned his headphones to shut out the distraction of crowd noise – R. Kelly’s The World’s Greatest and Heather Small’s Proud, the London 2012 theme tune, the teenager’s choice for tuning back into the job at hand. “I like to listen to motivational songs. They help me keep focused,” he said.

Daley struck back with three perfect marks of ten on his fourth dive and four on his fifth to take the lead with one dive left. “It was just amazing,” he said. “I’m really proud of the way I handled it. I knew if I held true on the last dive, I could be the champion. I had to breathe deep at that point.”

Daley nailed his last dive, but he knew that Klein, who won the ten-metre event in Beijing last month, when Daley finished seventh to qualify for the Olympics, had a high-tariff (degree of difficulty) dive to come. Klein scored 9.5 across the board, but Daley had done enough. His tally was 491.95 to Klein’s 487.60 with Francesco Dell’Uomo, of Italy, taking bronze with 481.30 On the deck, Andy Banks, the coach, hugged his charge, who then stood as the entire diving fraternity filed past to shake his hand. Rob, his father, broke through security to plant several kisses on his son’s head, before saying: “I’ve got to drive back to Calais for the ferry in the morning, but I don’t know if I’ll be safe at the wheel. It’s a stunning moment. My heart was leaping from my chest.”

The tears are all the more understandable in the light of the challenging time that the diver’s 37-year-old father has been through. When doctors found that he had a brain tumour, Rob hid the news, telling his son that his shaven head was part of a charity fundraiser.

As hysteria built around him last night, Daley remained calm, just as he had in the competition. In contrast to his unsettled opponents, he looked unruffled throughout his six dives. How? “There’s a lot of work gone into it back home,” he said. “That gives you confidence. It’s all the support system of people who have helped me, my school friends and the sacrifices I’ve made. When you stand up there you know that you can do it. It’s a question of focusing and remembering what you have to do.”

Daley will return to school at Eggbuckland Community College, Plymouth, tomorrow. Down the road, Sam Grevett, Daley’s first coach, will grant herself a pat on the back. She recalled recently the moment she had first seen Daley as an eight-year-old dive off the boards. “I told Andy [Banks] he needed to see this kid dive,” she said. “Tom used to hide behind the pillars because he was scared of the heights of three metres and the unknown. Even at 8, he had all the hallmarks of a great diver. He had acrobatics and, for a boy, he had pointed toes and straight knees.”

In the past, Western nations have shied away from rushing such young talent up to the ten-metre tower, but Steve Foley, a former Commonwealth champion for Australia and now diving performance director for Britain, explained how Chinese research had changed all that. Indeed, Peng Li, the coach, has been brought in from the world’s most successful diving nation to act as mentor to Banks and Daley.

“These youngsters can do the tower much earlier than we thought,” Foley said. “We were going wrong for a while because of our consciousness over child-protection issues. It could be that Thomas goes to London to aim for platform gold and then moves down to the springboard for 2016. It’s the opposite of the way we’ve done it traditionally, but the way the Chinese have proved to be better.

“Thomas is much lighter and therefore much less susceptible to injury off the tower than bigger blokes. We’ve taken Chinese knowledge, but taken account of the child-protection issues, the cultural issues that are the norm in our country. You have to learn from the best in the world, but apply it to your system.” It makes for frightening moments, Foley said. “Thomas learnt a reverse 3½ [his final dive in Eindhoven] only a month ago. That’s incredible for a 13-year-old. He got scores of ten for it at the World Cup last month. He’s amazing. I went down to see him in Plymouth and Andy said, ‘Peng says he’s ready.’ I said, ‘No way.’ Peng said ‘Yes’, so I said, ‘Fair enough.’ Thomas’s reaction was one of pure thrill, even though he was a bit apprehensive. He expects it of himself. When you talk to him, it’s hard to believe he’s 13.

He comes across as a 19 or 20-year-old in terms of his knowledge of diving.”

There are, though, plenty of moments when he is like any 13-year-old. “You’ll catch him tucking into a packet of crisps,” Foley said. “That’s what kids do, but he’s learning that it all changes when you become an elite athlete. We will have to watch his diet as the years go by. The other side of the coin is that his innocence is a brilliant thing. He’s like a sponge for knowledge.”

Young guns

Tom Daley (Great Britain): Was 13 years, 308 days old when he became the youngest European diving champion off the ten-metre platform in Eindhoven.

Brian Phelps (Great Britain): Was 14 years, 134 days old when he became European champion in the ten-metre platform diving at the 1958 championships in Budapest. Two years later, he won the bronze in the same event at the Olympic Games in Rome.

Isabelle White (Great Britain): Was 17 years, 308 days old when she won bronze in the inaugural women’s ten-metre platform at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm.

Fu Mingxia (China): Was 12 years, 144 days old when she became the youngest world diving champion, off the platform, in Perth, Australia, in 1991. A year later, aged 13 years, 353 days, she became the youngest Olympic platform champion.

Marjorie Gestring (United States): The youngest Olympic diving champion. She was 13 years, 267 days old when she won the springboard gold at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.

Nils Skoglund (Sweden): The youngest male medal-winner in any Olympic sport. He won the silver in the plain high-diving event at the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp when he was 14 years and 11 days old.

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