Tom Daley

OLYMPIC medal hope Tom Daley has been warned to cut back his media commitments or risk missing out on a podium place in the diving event.

The 17-year-old has just five months to complete his preparations before London 2012 but British diving’s performance director, Alexei Evangulov believes his work away from the diving board may hinder his chances.

Evangulov said: “I can’t stop it.

“If I had power over this, I would restrict it. Sometimes it hinders our preparations but I can’t do anything about it.

“If you look at the Chinese, they work three times harder. That’s the only secret. Just work hard.

“I know how the Chinese are training and they work much harder. If you compare them to Thomas, he has many commitments in his media activities.

“He’s very active, not like the Chinese. The Chinese have restricted their divers and I support them on this. I would recommend Tom to make not so many commitments to the media.”

Evangulov also believes Daley’s fifth-placed finish at last year’s World Championships is testament to his standing in the 10 metre platform.

Daley became Britain’s first individual diving world champion at the age of 15 in 2009, but Evangulov believes that performance was not indicative of his status in a discipline dominated by Qui Bo and his Chinese team-mates.

“Fifth. That really was his rating at that moment,” he said.

“We are working hard to try to raise his rating position.

“The people in Great Britain are mistakenly convinced that he is the best in the world, but he is not. He’s very strong and he’s one of the best, but he is not the best.”