Thirteen-year-old British diver Tom Daley is set to compete at the Olympic Games in Beijing later this year. His age has raised the question of whether there should be should be an age limit for competing at the Games? Two prominent sports people offer their opinions.
Alan Jones, former Lawn Tennis Association national coach who worked with Jo Durie and Elena Baltacha
For Tom Daley, it is probably not too soon to be at an Olympic Games, having listened to how articulate he is at the age of only 13. Though you might be looking at a teenager, he is very mature and will clearly cope extremely well when he dives for Britain in Beijing.
That difference between body and mind is an important issue. You do get these unique children who can cope with extraordinary pressure and who are the exception to the rule. But we have to think about the effect on the others who have been pressured by parents, coaches or associations, indeed by the very public clamour for success. As a tennis coach, when I am talking to parents I have to point out that though the body can look mature enough to handle what is being demanded of it, the mind is still too immature to deal with the mental side of sport.
Although for one or two kids everything is fine, you have to look at the broader picture. In amateur sport, the pressure to succeed is the issue; the bottom line in professional sport is that commercial interest, or dosh, reigns. That, though, is the nature of the beast in our sport. What has happened in tennis, as in other sports, is that if you have a young child with ability then unfortunately people are looking to promote that child very early on.
We are in such an age of young players that everyone has made their fortunes before they hit their mid-20s. It was almost refreshing to hear Roger Federer say recently that he wanted to carry on playing until he was 35. Women mature so much earlier than the men that the pressure on them is absurd.
I’m not going to pretend to know the ins and outs of the administration of gymnastics and the reasons behind raising the age to 16 for competition in the Olympics. But like many other people, I was alarmed by the documentaries on television looking at the way young girls used to be pushed in some countries to achieve success. Where does it sit that we, the adults, put so much pressure on the child?
However, you have to ask what the actual effect is of increasing the age at which they compete. In tennis, a woman cannot turn professional until she is 16. Yet Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon when she was only 17 and there is a phenomenal new guard from Eastern Europe coming through at 18 and 19. They have not sprung from nowhere, they are groomed for years and years before they turn professional. But are we also seeing the broken homes, marriages, the children hating sport because of far too much early pressure and the graveyards of those left behind who don’t make it?
Sharron Davies, Olympic medal-winning swimmer who made her debut aged 13 in 1976
To a certain extent it depends on the individual as to whether they are ready for an Olympics, and Tom is a very mature young man. If you have heard him in interviews, he is very aware, very astute and very bright: all the things he needs to be to compete at this level.
Beijing will give him an Olympics under his belt and that experience will be invaluable when it comes to London 2012 where he is hoping to win a gold medal. That is exactly what Montreal did for me in 1976. When it came to Moscow four years later I wasn’t overawed by the experience of being at an Olympics. I knew what to expect and I knew I was there to do a job.
It was only at the age of 29, in Barcelona in 1992, that I was able to really make the most of the Olympic experience and enjoy every moment because I felt so lucky to have had another chance to make the team. When I won my medal the situation was clouded by politics, while in Montreal I wasn’t old enough to fully appreciate everything. It will be a similar situation for Tom in Beijing.
It is the Olympic Games. When you have trained for six hours a day, year after year, there is a lot of pressure that comes from the desire to win. What he has to learn is how to deal with that so that he can perform on one day and win a medal. Being in Beijing can only benefit him to that end. And remember that he is not a novice at international level. Tom has been competing against the same divers who will be at the Olympics for the past 18 months.
People have to understand that a lot of divers are very young. The age is relative to the sport. This is not a situation where we are talking about a 14-year-old sprinter being picked for the 100m. It would not be physically possible for them to compete. But Tom’s shape and size are absolutely perfect. The Chinese divers who will be his main competitors will all be of a similar age and build.
Tom also has very protective and supportive parents, while the British Olympic Association is very aware of the pitfalls that can await young competitors and has policies in place to make sure they are kept safe.
It is very difficult to compare sports and the age limits they enforce. One of the reasons gymnastics took the decision to raise the age of Olympic competition to 16 was because of the allegations of drugs being forced on gymnasts to keep them small and the lack of restraint on how far young children would be driven.
It was also an attempt to get back to a situation where elegance rather than flicks and tumbles was at the centre of the sport. But you cannot use the same argument in diving where acrobatics are so significant. — Â