On Friday, the world will watch Beijing's spectacular opening ceremony bringing the Games closer to London, the next host city. But as three of Great Britain's divers - including Blake Aldridge - file into the Olympic Stadium, the club that discovered their talents could be marching out of business.

The irony is not lost on Chris Snode, a former world champion, who says that hopefuls for 2012 will suffer if the London Development Agency (LDA) evicts the Crystal Palace Diving Club, of which he is director, for rent arrears. Among them is Jessica Williams, 14, a national champion recently used by 2012 chiefs as a poster girl for the £303million aquatics centre at the Olympic Park. Tessa Jowell, the Minister for the Olympics, proclaimed the Kent teenager a reason why London needed a world-class pool, so that her mother, Alyson, could avoid driving 400 miles a week to a ten metre board in Sheffield.

The pool where she trains in South London was closed in September because of an asbestos scare and the June reopening date was delayed until December. The club use a football hall for dry-land training between weekly trips to a pool in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Decrepit and draughty, it is a forbidding place even after parents repainted it. “In the winter, it is freezing,” Maria Jarrett, mother of Hannah, 11, said.

Snode says that he cannot afford the hall fees after losing three quarters of his 445 members. Gill, his wife, who discovered Aldridge when he was 6, said: “Only the most dedicated stayed.”

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Snode has asked Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, to intervene to avoid closure. He most fears losing Cheng Yang, the head coach, and Xiang Yan Kong, his assistant, two of the best Chinese diving coaches in Britain. “They will help Britain win medals,” he said. “I'm hoping we have half the national team right here.”

Over the past two years, the Snodes have tested 45,000 children under a talent identification programme. Most are girls plucked from gymnastics and dance classes in local schools. Twenty are on 2012 fast-track training.

However, their chances of success are reduced every day the pool remains shut. Gill believes that Williams narrowly missed this year's European Championships because she had little practice on the high board. She said: “It's a good job Tom Daley lived in Plymouth and not London.” Swimming sources suggest that Williams may not be good enough. She has not made the national pre-2012 squad.

The LDA said that the Snodes were in arrears - now totalling £40,000 - before the pool closed. A spokesman said: “We are working with them to find an acceptable solution.”