Former rowing cox Kenneth Lester, Britain's youngest ever male Olympian, has apologised for knocking 13-year-old prodigy Tom Daley out of the record books.

Daley qualified for the British diving team for this year's Olympics after finishing seventh in the 10m platform at the World Cup held in Beijing's Water Cube.

It was thought that, at 14 years and 81 days when the Beijing Games take place, the Plymouth schoolboy was set to become the youngest British male Olympian.

However, a typing mistake has denied him the honour. In 1960 Lester was 13 years and 144 days old when he took part in the Rome Olympics, although erroneous British Olympic Association (BOA) record books had his year of birth down as 1937 instead of 1947.

The mistake only came to light when Lester read the story about Daley's supposed achievement.