Pete Waterfield and Tom Daley face next test

Olympic silver medallist Pete Waterfield believes the World Championships in Shanghai will give him and synchro partner Tom Daley vital experience of diving together ahead of next year's games in London.

The 30-year-old won silver back in 2004 in Athens in the 10m synchro with then partner Leon Taylor after many years of diving together. He and Daley only teamed up in January, although their still-fresh partnership has already enjoyed success, with bronze in the Fina World Series in China in their first outing and gold in Sheffield in April.

Waterfield is 13 years older than Daley, who lost his father Rob to cancer in May, and is looking at the event in Shanghai as a key stepping stone ahead of the 2012 Olympics.

Waterfield said: "We are not going to walk in there expecting a medal because it is still so early together. We are still learning about each other and getting to grips with each other so we just want to go there and put in a good performance.

"I'm sure by London we'll have everything ironed out. This year is crucial for our preparation. If we get a medal then great, if we don't it's an event we'll work from and next year is the time it will all start coming together.

"We'll be used to each other and we'll have a few more events to do before London. I think with the home crowd behind us, as we saw in Sheffield, we have definitely got a good chance in London."

Diving is hugely popular in China and Waterfield believes the intensity of the attention the sport gets can benefit the British divers.

He said: "The crowd is really good, it's nice to see everyone is enthusiastic - diving is like football. We know what to expect as we dive there every year. Sometimes on their home turf, as we have seen, they can blow it a bit. It's going to be a great event."

The diving competition gets under way today with the women's 3m synchro heats and final sandwiching the men's 1m springboard prelims. Waterfield and Daley have the 10m synchro prelims and final on Sunday with the individual event on Sunday, 24 July.

Two years ago Rebecca Adlington headed into the World Championships in Rome as a newly-crowned double Olympic champion, her life transformed after her success in Beijing. The Mansfield-born swimmer was little known outside the swimming world before the summer of 2008 and found herself catapulted into the public eye after her triumphs in the 400metres and 800m freestyle.

Adlington was hot property and, while she enjoyed the openings her success had brought, the demands on her time meant she was unable to complete the heavy workload essential for a long-distance swimmer. Rome brought mixed results. Bronze in the 400m freestyle in a new personal best in a race in which winner Federica Pellegrini became the first woman to go under four minutes and third in the 4x200m freestyle relay were tempered by fourth place in the 800m.

The 22-year-old can see with hindsight the effects of expectation and knows she is now older and wiser heading into Shanghai. Adlington said: "I thought going into Rome - ‘everyone wants to beat me, everyone is putting so much pressure on to me'. But they're not - everyone wants you to do well and I am only putting pressure on myself.

"Now I realise people just want to support you and I have realised people aren't going to hate you if you don't do well. I was young and experiencing it for the first time whereas now I'm a little bit older and less naive. I realise now, I've been through it."

In Shanghai Adlington will again lock horns with the likes of Pellegrini, Camille Muffat, Lotte Friis and GB team-mate Jaz Carlin as well as what will undoubtedly be a strong home team.