Good year for Pete Waterfield (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)

Good year for Pete Waterfield

11:48am Thursday 26th August 2010 in

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WALTHAMSTOW’S Pete Waterfield has set his sights on linking up with GB diving’s golden boy Tom Daley in a bid to claim gold at London 2012.

Waterfield – an Olympic silver medallist in Athens – has upstaged the precocious 16-year-old in 2010, piping him to the National Cup in February while also winning the British Championships recently.

At present Daley competes with Max Brick in the synchronised competition and will line up with him at next month’s European Championships in Hungary.

Former McEntee School pupil Waterfield has chosen to miss the trip to Budapest in order to concentrate on the Commonwealth Games later in the year.

But despite Brick seemingly being in the box seat to link up with Daley at the London Games – now just two years away – Waterfield revealed the wheels are in motion for him to line up alongside Daley in the capital.

“Two years goes so quickly but I can’t wait for London,” said Waterfield. “I’m obviously the oldest in the GB diving team and I’ve had people saying to me, are you going to London? Of course I am – I’m going to try anyway. It’s not going to come round in my lifetime again so of course I’m going for it.

“The last two years have gone so quickly so I don’t see why the next two won’t as well. We’ve just got to keep working hard and it will be here like there’s no tomorrow.

“The individual platform and the synchro platform are what I’ll be targeting if I make it. Hopefully it will be me and Tom in the synchro. We’re going to be looking at it from now to see it if works. There are three of us with Max Brick as well and whichever pair works best together, we’ll go with that. Hopefully it will be me and Tom.”

Waterfield had a sneak preview of the London venues on Tuesday (July 27) when he was given a behind-the-scenes tour of the facilities to coincide with the 2012 countdown reaching two years to go mark.

But the 29-year-old insists he will not get ahead of himself in his London preparations with his attentions focused solely on adding to his Commonwealth Games medal tally in October.

“I’ve been to two Commonwealths already. I won in Manchester and got a silver in Melbourne so I know exactly what it’s all about,” added Waterfield.

“For me, it’s like a miniature Olympic Games so I’d rather do that than the Europeans. I wanted to focus on them as much as possible. From a funding point of a view, if I was to win a medal or even win the Europeans, my funding wouldn’t go up anyway.

“So I’m going to use the next few months to prepare for the Commonwealths instead rather than do the Europeans. I just want to get my head down now and train hard and get ready for Delhi. I’m really looking forward to it.”

Visa is proud to be Presenting Partner of Team 2012, a team of 1,200 athletes across the UK who are aiming to compete at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. For more information go to www.lifeflowsbetter.com