That spat between Daley and Aldridge

Well there we have it: fourteen year old Tom Daley from Plymouth and 26 year old Blake Aldridge from Southampton came 8th in the synchronised diving yesterday (for eighth read last but that sounds worse). What is sadly making greater news though in the popular press and in blogs is the apparent row between the two of them before the last dive of the six.

Now I'm trying not to be partisan here but it appears that the mother of Aldridge waved at her son and he spoke on the phone to her before the pair's final dive. Daley sparked at this asking what Aldridge was doing prior to the end of their event. Afterwards Aldridge attacked Daley saying that the latter was too nervous and shouldn't have been concerning himself with what he, Aldridge, was doing. I'm going to be absolutely blunt here, there was a complete and utter breakdown of personal discipline on the part of Aldridge - firstly you do not mess around with phone calls while waiting your turn in such an event and secondly it was poor to so quickly blame Daley for the end result bearing in mind that Daley has a further event in which to participate in this Olympics.

There does seem to have been an element of jealousy too on the part of Aldridge because inevitably Daley has been getting incredible media attention in the build up to the event. Hindsight is the most wonderful thing of course but one has to question the wisdom of those making the decision to pair the two together. It seems to me that a 12 year difference in age in such a sport would inevitably cause problems.