Olympic diver facing end of his career

One Olympic diver is facing potentially dropping out of full time training this year due to a lack of funding and budget reforms within his discipline.

Olympic diving medalist Waterfield has been faced with an ultimatum, to place in this years London 2012 or get a full time job and train in his own spare time.

He recently got dropped from his role as an athlete monitor for youth teams, as well as having his lottery funding reduced since undergoing shoulder surgery after the Beijing Olympics in 2008. With London 2012 just a matter of weeks away he could not risk failure by getting a job now and miss out on vital training.

So to see him through, his wife has taken up a second job as a carer in the evenings, as well as working in the NHS during the day. All this is so they can keep up with mortgage costs as well as providing for their two children, both under ten.

This poses the question then, why do some athletes in this years Olympics have overwhelming funding and support, whilst others are seemingly struggling to survive?

At the moment many channels are cashing in on the London 2012 games, they are using the faces of well known British athletes to help endorse their products with a return of publicity and money for those athletes. Some adverts on screens at the moment include the likes of Jessica Ennis, Usain Bolt and Waterfield's diving team mate, Tom Daley. They are all barely out of the papers and social media sites. So how come they are securing such lucrative investments and not mature professionals such as Waterfield....

Well the one thing that clearly stands out is age, Daley and Ennis are both young, fresh faced, attractive athletes. Whereas Waterfield is 30 and in the sporting world, basically set for retirement.

In a world where every year counts, it appears to be that companies lose interest in older sportsmen after a certain time. Unless you cashed in on your youth and talent and made a household name for yourself, once you get too old you will sadly go on the pile of other forgotten athletes....

Although, it is rather sad that we live in a world where no one can support our British Olympic hopefuls unless 'Olay' or 'Coca-cola' tell us to. It would be nice for someone in the media to give this guy a chance to show us he is still the amazing athlete who has won so many medals for this country.