19 of Plymouth Diving’s youngest members of the club made their way to Southend to part take in their National Finals. Accompanied by coaches Tommy Davis, Lucy Gutierrez-Freeman and Jaime Conn they youngsters made the long journey hoping to emulate the success of their elder club mates from the previous weeks Finals.
Alarms were set very early for many of the Plymouth divers on the Saturday as the first session of the Finals featured 14 of the club’s divers against the rest of Britian’s diving clubs. In front of a large crowd Plymouth Diving had 5 representatives in the D1 category which got the finals underway. The girls who are aged 9 and 10 looked composed throughout the competition with all 5 of them finishing in the top 15, with Myia Lilley finishing highest out of the Plymouth divers with a remarkable 4th placed finishing 4 points off a podium place. Top 10 finishes for Stephanie Clarke who finished in 7th place and Phoebe-May Evans one place behind her teammate in 8th position. Rounding of the top 15 results was Lyra Johnson who finished in 12th place and Honor-Grace Kelly cementing a top 15 place by finishing in 14th place.
Next off the diving boards was the E girls and this just like the first category Plymouth was well represented in it. The 6 Plymouth divers who aged 9 and under showed no signs of nerves in front of the judges and crowd, producing a fantastic display of diving. Plymouth had reason to cheer when the results had been finalised with Lacey-Mae Hocking and Ivy-May Davey both finding themselves in the top 10 with superb 4th and 6th place finishes respectively. Making it inside the top 15 of this very tough group was two of the youngest members of the squad in Olivia Birkett who placed very well in 14th position and Aria Cole making up the top 15 with her 15th place. Bethany Hocking came up just short of the top 15 in 16th place and Katie-Rose Wilkinson finished in 22nd position but gained a vast amount of competition experience just by making it to her 1st final.
Rounding off the Saturday morning session was the D2 girls. Once again, the standard of diving was extremely high with many divers in contention of medalling but unfortunately Plymouth Diving didn’t quite get to the medals this time, but were celebrating two more girls finishing inside the top 10 as Emily Williams dived herself into 6th place and Ivy Dart competing for the last time before her families move to Australia finished in 9th position. Also finishing in the top half of the category was Imogen-Rose Hocking who put in a determine diving display considering the week before competition found herself on crutches due to injury, only deciding to compete the morning of the final’s finished in 15th place and Aneya Burton one place behind her in 16th but gained more valuable experience in her first season of competing for Plymouth.
Once the morning session had finished, it was the turn of C1 girls to get the afternoon session started. Three Plymouth divers were involved in this category, and it was a very tight affair for the podiums again which did feature one Plymouth Diver in Rae Mossford who got on the podium curtesy of her skills of the 3m board. Close behind Rae and narrowly missing out on the medals in 4th place was Margot Elliot who once again provided great consistency in all her dives. Final diver of the Plymouth trio was Lottie Tucker who got into the Top 20 in 20th position.
Plymouth Diving’s interest was due to end in morning session on the final day in this year’s National Finals with the final two competitors taking to the boards in D1 open. Theo Todd and Bobby Cole attending their first National Finals dived with great confidence throughout with Theo Todd ending the competition on top of the podium taking the gold medal and Bobby Cole narrowly missing out on the podium place having to settle for 5th position.
Plymouth Diving would like to take the opportunity to thank sponsor Pilkington Estate for the ongoing support and Plymouth Active for the continued use of the excellent facilities which is allowing youngsters to flourish in diving. Huge thanks go to the coaches who without them, divers wouldn’t be able to excel and to Joel Trenchard for his expertise in judging.
