British diving prodigy Daley bullied at school

A 14-year-old British athlete who took the Beijing Olympics by storm despite coming last in his event was bullied when he returned to his school in Plymouth, south west England, it has been revealed.

Diver Tom Daley, who specializes in the 10-m platform event, was Britain's youngest competitor at the 2008 Summer Olympics and the youngest competitor of any nationality outside the sport of swimming. He was also the youngest to compete in a final.

Daley's life was being made so miserable by bullying that his parents took him out of Eggbuckland Community College in Plymouth.

His father Rob, who took the issue up with the school's principal, Katrina Borowski, on two occasions, said the bullying amounted to childish name-calling, jibes and having things thrown at his son.

Ms Borowski admitted that Tom's "extremely high profile has led to a minority of students acting in an immature way towards him". She also said certain students had been "sanctioned" as a result.

"Although Tom hadn't said anything, I could tell by his somber mood when he came home from school over the past few months that something was wrong," said Rob Daley. "Although they cannot be held responsible for the students, I do think the school should be more proactive in trying to sort this bullying out."

Tom said the bullying had first started to gain momentum following his appearance at last year's Olympic Games in Beijing. He had hoped by ignoring the taunts and "letting them go over my head", the pupils would give up.

But, if anything, said Tom, the provocations have got increasingly worse since the turn of the year - and have escalated from name calling to actually throwing things at him.

Tom insisted all he has ever wanted is to lead a normal life but, because of his fame, he said, it is becoming impossible at Eggbuckland.

He said: "I'd always ignored the 'diver boy' or 'Speedo boy' comments when I came back from Beijing last year, hoping they'd get fed up and stop. The trouble is they haven't, and it's even the younger kids who are joining in.

"It's getting to the stage now where I think 'oh, to hell with it. I don't want to go back to school'. And that is something I don't want to do, as I'm not intimidated by the pests - just really cheesed off."

Borowski said, in a statement: "Meetings have been held between college staff, parents and Tom's friends in which appropriate strategies were discussed. Certain students have been sanctioned."

Tom has now been offered a scholarship at Plymouth College, which has fees of nearly $6,000 a term for day pupils. It is attended by a number of young elite athletes. The youngster has yet to decide whether to take it up.

A month after Tom's appearance at the Olympics, he participated in the FINA Junior World Championships for the first time. He finished second in the category B competition for his age group with 549.60 points, between China's Qiu Bo (551.85 points) and Wu Dongliang (474.00 points). He was also second in the 3-m springboard competition in the same category, with 485.25 points, between the two Chinese, Wu Dongliang (510.25 points) and Wang Peng (470.40 points).

(China Daily 05/02/2009 page11)