Three cheers for Tom Daley's mum

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/13/tom-daley-mum-a-hero

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Diver Tom Daley's debut in light entertainment in ITV's Saturday night show, <em>Splash!</em> has been marred because he is part of a series that within its first week has been universally slammed as drippy and directionless. This is not least because D-list celebrities take exactly the same time as everyone else to perform a belly flop – that is, nanoseconds. However, it has launched an unexpected star: namely, Tom's mum.

Debbie Daley has rightly taken exception to the comments of David Sparkes, chief executive of British Swimming, who last week criticised her son for acting as coach on the show. Sparkes said, via the media rather than directly to Daley and his team, that the 18-year-old should have waited until the end of his competitive career.

Last February, Sparkes had also voiced his disapproval of Daley's non-diving commitments (calendar, book, meeting the fans), saying that Tom was in danger of not fulfilling his talent.

Sparkes has a right to speak – but there is a time and a place. In December, he also managed to upset medallist Rebecca Adlington who said she had felt "insulted, disheartened and saddened" by the way in which the review of Britain's swimming team's underperformance at the Olympics had ignored the swimmers.

So, when Sparkes speaks, he ought to be very sure that, in the process, he doesn't find himself in at the deep end with the water way above his head. Which is where he found himself last week, thanks to the sparkling retaliation provided by Mrs Daley, who penned a letter in defence of her boy.

She lists Tom's self-discipline; the impact of his father's death from cancer; the need to finance aspects of his training; the fact that <em>Splash!</em> takes up only one day of her son's weekend; his keenness to promote the sport wherever he can – and his focus on the 2016 Olympics.

"You are worried about Tom's performances?" she tells Sparkes. "Well, I am worried about yours. I would like you to do leadership, media and motivation courses… It is also baffling that you openly criticise Tom when you yourself have called in special favours for Tom to make appearances…" (Sparkes asked Tom to open a sports park.)

Comparisons with Chinese athletes are nonsense, she tells Sparkes. "[Tom] was not born in Beijing," Mrs Daley points out, "he was born in Plymouth."

What impresses about Debbie Daley's defence is that it is a fine example of matriarchal firepower made all the more effective because she manages to avoid Tom seeming like a mummy's boy even as she rises to protect his reputation and behaviour; no mean feat.

"A leader should motivate his team," Mrs Daley instructs Sparkes, "not make them think, 'Why do I bother?'"

Tom, she reminds Sparkes, "is one of the athletes that helped you to retain your job".

Her finely tuned critique says something wider, too, about British sport. In her detailing of Sparkes's arrogance and pomposity, Mrs Daley also deftly peels back the skin of the inferior, grey, middle-aged, out-of-touch managers who infect too many walks of British sporting life while living it large. And reveals what? Well, as Debbie implies, not a lot really.

In a mother like Debbie, the boy's done well.