Pilkington Estate sponsored Plymouth Diving were once again in action, but this time 22 of the youngest members of the club travelled to Royal Tunbridge Wells to take part in South East Regionals. Supported by Plymouth Active Leisure, coaches Cody Powell-Tuckett and Lucy Gutierrez-Freeman had the task of overseeing 12 dives from each of the 24 Plymouth competitors. Heavy traffic on the motorways the day before and a competition running 2 hours behind schedule certainly didn’t hinder morale or spirits of any of the divers throughout the day.
In front of large vocally supporting crowd in a small venue E girls got Plymouth Diving interests in the competition underway. 7 of Plymouth divers including debutant Eva Coleman had to deal with a large pause during the session due to technical problems, but once underway the Plymouth divers showed great composure and consistency in all their dives. Once all the scores were manually totalled up due to the technical problems at the venue and having to wait over 2 hours for the results to be confirmed, Lacey-Mae Hockings found herself on the podium finishing in an incredible 3rd place next to 2 national finalists from last year. Inside the top 10 was also Ivy-May Davey in 5th position,Bethany Hockaday finished 6th and Olivia Birkett finishing in 9th place and scoring enough points to book her place at the National Finals. Just outside the top 10 was Aria Cole finishing 11th and Eva Coleman with an outstanding 14th place in her first competition. Saphia Howells and Katie-Rose Wilkinson rounded off the Plymouth Divers in the category with excellent 19th and 21st respectively.
D girls category was split into 2 groups based on year of birth. D1 category for divers who were born in 2014 had 5 Plymouth divers competing in it, with every diver finishing in the top half of the leaderboard when the results were finalised. There was another medalist from Plymouth in Phoebe-Mae Evans who dived her way into silver medal with her 3m springboard dives, a particular highlight even scoring a 9 from one of the judges in the process. Honor-Grace Kelly once again provided consistency in another top 10 finish finding herself in 6th place whilst being joined in the top 10 by Stephanie Clarke with a strong 8th position and Lyra Johnson in 10th scoring enough points to meet National Final qualification. Finishing just outside the top 10 was Myia Lilley who ended up in 12th place respectively only missing out on a top 10 place by 2 points.
D2 girls had Imogen-Rose Hocking and Ivy Dart competing in the category with the latter trying to meet the qualification score to compete at the National Finals in July. With diving of the highest quality with a couple divers scoring the rare 10’s for a dive, the competition was fierce but Ivy and Imogen didn’t let that worry them, producing excellent dives to get the top 10. Imogen, who was fighting illness, looked very strong in her poolside section finishing in 10th place and Ivy produced a fantastic one and half pike from 1m to sail her into the Final and an 8th place finish too.
Bobby Cole, Theo Wills and Theo Todd who all had waited 4 hours for the chance to compete in their D1 category certainly didn’t let the long wait hinder their performances in the pool. They all competed brilliantly and held their own in what was a very big category. Theo Wills was very unlucky not to finish inside the top 10 missing out by 0.75 points and finishing 11th. Bobby Cole a previous medalist in the last competition finished in 5th position producing a consistent scores throughout his 12 dives, but it was Theo Todd a recent diver of the month at Plymouth Diving who found himself on the podium placing in 2nd position not only did he receive the silver medal but his score was good enough for him to attend the National Finals.
As the day wore into the late afternoon it was the chance for C1 girls to finally get underway. Representing Plymouth Diving was Lottie Tucker and Grace Norsworthy who were both looking to make the qualification score to attend their finals in Southend. Grace Norsworthy who was another struggling with illness fell just sort of getting enough points to attend the final finishing in a very respectable 21st place in what was a large category. Lottie Tucker produced some terrific dives in all 3 sections to finish inside the top 10 but more importantly she gained enough points to meet the qualification score and complete her competition in 10th place.
Plymouth Diving’s final boy was Daniel Robinson in the C1 category. Daniel, another previous medallist, was another one to fall just short of not just a place on the podium but also just shy of the qualification score to get himself to Southend in July. He did produce a consistent 12 dives but narrowly misses out.
C2 girls was the final event of the day and it was Isla Newton’s turn to impress the judges with 12 dives and she did just that, in what was the largest single category of the day Isla Newton got into the top 10 finishing in 8th place with a score of 271.85.
A very successful day for Plymouth Diving overall, with a large number of competitors next event being the National Finals in July.
