National Age Groups

 

Return to Nationals for talented divers

This weekend saw Plymouth Life Centre host the largest national diving competition in England, with divers travelling throughout England as well as guest divers from Scotland, Wales, and Dubai.

Plymouth’s selected team of 15, who had all qualified through regional events were keen to show off their home pool and represent their club, demonstrating their hard work, with the support of Pilkington Estates. This was the first Swim England National Age groups for 11 of the divers showing a great future for forthcoming competitions.

First up on the Thursday was the synchro event. Plymouth’s Yvie Tucker and Eva Lang started the competition on a high, claiming the gold medal with beautifully executed dives showing their partnership well placed, with teammates Lexi Davies and Martha Ticehurst taking 6th place. Not to be outdone, Noah Underwood and partner Alex Whittaker took the gold medal in the boys event, securing Plymouth as group C/D champions in both the boys and girls category.

The four-day long competition saw further diving successes across all groups.

Erin Healey on the Girls group B 3m placed 22nd with some excellent diving in a large group of 28. Erin repeated her great diving on the platform event, with an amazing front two and a half somersault in pike position from the 10m board, which put her in 17th position, resulting in personal bests (PB’s) on both boards. Mathilde Tassart also joined this event with a great set of dives and placed her in 21st position.

Alex Whittaker went on to continue his success from the previous day with another gold medal following an excellent display of diving in the boys C group platform event. Not content with his two medals so far, he performed a great set of dives on the 3m board and added a silver to his collection. Will Heath, stepping up to his first year in group C in Age groups performed brilliantly with an amazing back one and a half somersaults in tuck placing him securely in 6th position on 3m, and again on platform.

The boys were joined by Noah Underwood and Oscar Westbury on the 3m and again all four divers competed on the 1m board whereby they firmly put their mark on the competition dominating the top half of the leader board, with Noah taking a brilliant bronze, Alex 4th Will 5th and Oscar 6th.

Girls C group divers had a strong team of four competing over the weekend. Yvie Tucker, Lexi Davies and Eva Lang, took to the boards again in a close competition on the 1m and performed a strong set of dives which placed Yvie in 6th, just 1.9 points behind the bronze, Lexi just behind in 7th and Eva in 10th with a PB and happy with her back one and a half somersault tucked being a highlight of her event.

The trio took to the 3m board the next day where Yvie performed a beautiful inward dive pike. Martha Ticehurst joined them on this board and showed a confident round of dives to the judges in her first Age Groups. Lexi topped the Plymouth Divers on this board in another strong 10th position. The final board for the girls was platform. Whilst there were no medals, they all yet again demonstrated outstanding dives.

Girls group A divers Maia Pearson and Ellie Pearce made for a nail-biting competition on the 1m board, with Maia winning a bronze medal and Ellie finishing in 4th place with only 2.3 points behind her teammate with a PB.

The duo continued their impressive skills on the 3m board the following day with another closely fought competition whereby Maia, following a high scoring inward two and a half somersaults in tuck secured herself her second bronze of the competition, and Ellie finished in 9th place.

Ellie had another day of competing ahead of her in the girls A platform event, with a solid series of dives putting her into 9th position. Teammate Ella Cornish displayed a strong start to her National Age Group debut and finished in 17th position.

In the Boys A 1m board Ben Kearton displayed some impressive diving, starting well scoring all 7s on his first dive – an exceptional front one and a half somersaults tucked, and remaining strong, just missing a podium position, and placing 4th with a PB.

Harry Westbury was the only Plymouth diver in the D event and began his great introduction to the national event on the 1m board with two excellent dives and consistent scoring rewarding him with a silver medal. He competed again on the 3m board and gained a bronze to add to his silver.

The Plymouth Divers finished 4th overall from 14 clubs, scooping 9 medals. Divers were coached by Tommy Davis, and Fito Guttierez who said “I just want to say that this weekend showed our strength as a club and the fight to not give up after the pandemic! We all had a tough time, at last the divers had a national event to make themselves proud. They showed grit and determination to perform in front of a packed balcony. We had plenty of divers in the podium and lots of top 6’s. I want to thank all the people behind the scenes for a great Nationals in our pool, the Life Centre – the best to hold big events in the UK and beyond…”

Plymouth Diving can look forward proudly to the next events to come.