BRITISH Diving's national performance director Steve Foley

has praised Plymouth's programme after city stars Tom Daley and

Tonia Couch finished as the country's top two performers at the

Olympic Games.

Daley finished seventh and Couch eighth in their respective

individual platform finals, which has qualified them for next

year's World Series.

But Foley says it is now vital that Plymouth gets the new

pool it has been promised to keep the region at the forefront

of British diving.

"Full credit to Andy Banks and Plymouth for getting two

divers aged only 14 and 19 into Olympic finals and in the

world's top eight," said Foley.

"That is unheard of before and what Andy has done down there

running it as his own business is brilliant.

"He is doing a superb job. Full credit to the programme they

have there.

"But the bottom line is how good could they be if they had a

world-class facility there.

"They are really doing it the hard way in Plymouth with a

sub-standard facility.

"If they had a world-class facility Plymouth diving could

really take the next step."

Plymouth is one of four, high performance centres around the

country. The others are based in Southampton, Sheffield and

Leeds.

Plymouth, however, is the only one without international

standard boards and it means that their athletes have to travel

to Southampton for national synchronised training.

It also means Plymouth cannot hold any major

competitions.

Foley admits British Diving would like to stage events in

the West Country and if plans for a new pool at Central Park

are progressed, then hosting national championships could be on

the cards.

"Plymouth is old and run down and we can't hold major

competitions there at the moment," said Foley.

"But if they had a world-class facility we would have

national or trial events there.

"At the moment they are all held at either Sheffield,

Manchester or Leeds where you can do synchro.

"The synchro is a real problem for Plymouth. Tom and Tonia

have to travel to Southampton to train.

"It would be nice to say one week training will be held in

Plymouth and the other week Southampton, but we can't do that

at the moment.

"But diving facilities are a national problem.

"We lack a decent dry-land facility. The Chinese, Russian

and Australians spend 50 per cent of their time in a dry-land

facility and when they are younger that is often around 70 per

cent of their time.

"Having a dry-land facility gives you a safe environment to

learn new dives.

"There is a misconception that dry-land facilities are

expensive, but they are not.

"It is just a question of land and they facility can be used

by gymnastic clubs and schools.

"But if British diving is to win medals then we need a

world-class dry-land centre."

British Diving were asked at one point to consider reducing

their high performance centres from four to just two – one in

the south and one in the north – which would put Plymouth's

future in doubt.

Foley said: "That is still on the back-burner, but if you

start re-locating athletes then it becomes expensive.

"For example how do you re-locate a 14-year-old? You also

have to re-locate his family and find him a new school.

"We have a lot of young divers, which would make it

difficult.

"And the good thing about the Olympic team was every high

performance centre had two or more divers on the team.

"If they were all coming from one or two clubs then maybe

there would be a case to change, but each centre is producing

and Plymouth is doing a good job."

Read an excxlusive full interview with Tom Daley and

Tonia Couch in today's edition of The Herald