Britain's teenage star Tom Daley is hoping China's divers will crack under pressure at the London Olympics as he seeks to break the dominance of the "Dream Team" on home soil.
The 18-year-old kicks off his London programme alongside partner Peter Waterfield in the men's synchronised platform on Monday, and follows up with the individual platform on August 10 at London's Aquatic Centre.
China won all 10 diving medals at last year's Shanghai world championships, and since they returned to the Olympics in 1984, Chinese divers have claimed 27 out of 40 gold medals. Eight are on offer in London.
However, Daley insists China -- including his awesome 10m platform rival Qiu Bo, whom he recently described as a "robot" -- are beatable.
"Normally in diving, silver is gold, because the Chinese dominate everything," said Daley, who made his Olympic debut in China four years ago as a 14-year-old schoolboy.
"But you never know what happens in an Olympic Games. Take Athens in 2004 for example, the Greek pair only qualified because they were hosts.
"China failed their dive in the last round, then Russia were favourites, but one of them hit the board, then the Americans messed their dive up and Greece won Olympic gold.
"We have all seen the YouTube videos of speed skaters crashing on the last corner (at Winter Olympics) and the last man standing wins, you don't know what will happen."
Having won the world platform title in Rome in 2009, Daley was beaten by China's 19-year-old diving star Qiu in Shanghai last year. The Briton had lost his father to cancer just months earlier.
Daley is relishing another showdown having finished fifth in Shanghai while reigning champion Matt Mitcham of Australia, whose gold in Beijing denied China clean sweep of eight Olympic titles, is also sure to challenge.
"Qiu Bo has been unbeaten for the last few years individually, but I have learnt all of his dives and we have the same level of difficulty," said Daley, who won platform and synchro golds at the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games.
"It is about who is going to perform the best on the day, I am going to go out there and do my best as he will.
"It's about trying to produce the best six dives of our lives."
Mitcham is battling back from an abdominal muscle injury and says the spotlight on Daley and Bo has taken the pressure off him.
"I feel quite grateful," Mitcham said. "Because of all these injuries, a lot of expectation has been lifted off me.
"People underestimate how much it can affect you having the weight of expectation. Some athletes deal with that better than others."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/daley-hopes-chinas-divers-crack-150824096--oly.html
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