For a time, back then, the nation was transfixed by and became familiar with the intricacies of dancing on ice thanks to Torvill and Dean; subsequently the object of mass fascination was rowing courtesy of Redgrave and Pinsent.

Now diving is the game that matters, commentary will be all of pikes and twists, tucks and somersaults, and the person who makes it all so vitally and suddenly important is a diminutive schoolboy from Plymouth who has just turned 14, Tom Daley.

Naturally, it is Daley’s youth that makes him immediately newsworthy. He is almost the youngest British competitor ever to qualify for the summer Olympics and would be the youngest to win a medal, which is within his capabilities.

But youth will fade and what will remain is more important: Daley is sensationally good and getting better day by day. He is just a kid but has the assurance of somebody who really knows what he’s doing and where he’s going. And like Torvill and Dean and Redgrave and Pinsent, his exploits will be worth following over many episodes.

His appearance yesterday at the Fina world series event in Sheffield was but a stepping-stone on the road to Beijing, a chance to compete against some of the world’s elite. Partnered by Blake Aldridge in the 10m platform synchronised competition, Daley won another gold medal to add to his already enormous collection. He also earned a half share of the $5,000 prize, which he said he will put into a savings account. Such a good boy.

At the start of every dive, Aldridge, a 25-year-old from Southampton who is more than a decade older than his partner and a good bit bigger, whispered “One, two, three” to ensure they started together.

Daley and Aldridge led throughout their six dives, ensuring victory by nailing their final and hardest dive, a back two-and-a-half somersault with one-and-a-half twists. There was a slightly unnerving moment before that dive as Daley noticed some blood on the end of the take-off board. It had been left by one of the Russian divers who had hit it with his foot as he descended from his initial jump. Aldridge wiped it up with a towel and the show went on.

“We were very pleased,” Daley said. “Our score was close to our personal best, but we know we can do better.”

“We’ve had a great year,” Aldridge said, “but I’ve thought we were down a bit lately. This puts us back to our best, and just at the right time.”

In June, Daley and Aldridge will compete in the British trials, with a place in the synchronised event in Beijing at stake. To achieve that, they will need to beat Pete Waterfield and Leon Taylor, who won the silver medal for Britain in Athens.

Today, Daley dives in the 10m platform individual competition, the discipline for which he has already been selected for Beijing and at which he is European champion.

The athleticism, balance and control of world-class divers are astonishing, making one wonder anew at the capacity and elasticity of the human body when trained. Yet there is also derring-do, because a necessary attribute of any diver, especially off the high board, is courage. Daley, like every true diver, has plenty, for he has known fear and confronted it, again and again.

When he was an even smaller boy, Daley used to hide behind the platform pillars, too scared to dive even from the 3m board. And that was despite the gymnastic thrill he discovered when he first tried diving as a seven-year-old.

“I watched him when he first started,” said Andy Banks, who has coached Daley almost from the beginning. “He was crying and I thought he wouldn’t have what it takes to make it.”

The fear never retreats completely, and those who spend their lives within the sport never take the 10m board, which they call the tower, for granted. “It’s scary as hell up there,” said Banks. Daley himself is open about the fear factor. “You’re always thinking, ‘Am I going to be hurt?’ Anything can happen in diving. It’s the sport of the unknown.”

The way to make sure you are not hurt is to enter the water as you are supposed to. Sounds simple, but it’s not easy. Your arms need to be fully stretched out, wrists braced and your hands interlocked to form a hard, flat surface. You want to hit the water with your hands, like a snub-nosed bullet, the hands breaking the surface and the water getting sucked in rather than splashing out, creating a kind of void through which the head, shoulders and the rest of the body can follow almost without disturbance.

This is what the divers call a ‘rip’ entry. Any deviation from such perfection is likely to be painful and bruising, or worse.

“The nastiest experience is losing your bearings, not knowing where you are in the air,” Banks said. “When that happens, you just have to wait until you hit the water, at 35mph, knowing it’s going to hurt a lot. When that happens, it’s a big demotivator for going up there again.”

Nerves and loss of confidence are constant demons. Last summer, Daley “lost” the twist element in his dives. He had a crisis that rendered him unable to dive, and he pulled out of a competition in Germany.

“He thought he was finished as a diver,” Banks said. “We had to build that element up again from scratch, in the gym and on the lower boards. Now it is one of his strongest skills.”

For some time, Daley’s progression into the senior ranks was held back. He was ready to compete at the highest level in 2006 but instead spent another year on the junior circuit, developing dives with greater degrees of difficulty. Daley still has more dives to learn before he can be counted among the very best in the world.

“We have three goals for Tom at Beijing,” Banks said. “He should be proud and happy with his performance; he should learn as much as possible; and he should have some fun. He’s just a 14-year-old, after all.”

Explore More Sport

• Athletics

• Boxing

• Cycling

• Sailing

• US Sport