Southampton Diving Academy

About Southampton Diving Academy

The Quays Swimming and Diving Complex opened to the public in June 1999 with provision of springboard/highboard diving as a high priority. The mission statement for the diving academy is: “To create a high quality programme to cater for divers at all stages of development and with different aspirations and aptitudes.”

In September 2010 national charity Active Nation took over the management of the Quays from Southampton City Council and now takes responsibility for delivering the diving programme to academy members.

Facilities for diving at the Quays are some of the best in the south of England. There are two each of 1m and 3m springboards and 1m, 3m, 5m, 7.5m and 10m platforms, all suitable for competition at International level. Bubble-making machines give divers extra cushioning when they execute new dives. In addition there are excellent studio facilities, including a dry board and trampoline.

The Director of coaching, Lindsey Fraser, was a member of the British Olympic Team in 1980 and 1984 and the British Team Manager for the Olympic Games in 2000 and 2004, she was also one of the Team GB coaches in Beijing. In 2002 she was the English Commonwealth Diving Coach. She is a trained secondary school teacher and continued her teaching career alongside her coaching until she moved to Southampton in 1999. She was awarded the Helen Rollason medal as the top female UK Coach of the Year in 2004.

The team of coaches includes Chris Gravestock who is the National Junior Coach of the Year. Chris coaches divers at every level of the programme up to and including senior national level. Also the programme has the benefit of Chinese coach Xinde Zhang, who is seconded through British Diving. Many of the elite divers have also qualified to join the team.

Southampton Diving Academy was formed in January 2000, amalgamating the former City of Southampton Swimming and Southampton Diving clubs. Membership of the club now stands at around 80, with divers aged 7 – 60+ years, diving at all competitive levels. Some of the recruits had their first taste of diving through the Quays “tasters” scheme.

At the top of the club Pete Waterfield became the first British diver to win the gold on highboard at the Commonwealth Games for 20 years in 2002. He was also the European Champion of Champions on highboard, the first British diver ever to achieve this result. In August 2004 he took a silver medal at the Olympics in the synchronised highboard event and 5th in the individual highboard competition. In 2005 he took bronze in the synchronised highboard event at the World Diving Championships, making a new British record. In March 2006 he took the silver medal on highboard at the Commonwealth Games. In August 2008 he represented Great Britain at his third Olympic Games and in 2009 he took 4th place at the World Championships on 1m, making the highest score ever by a Briton on this board and the highest ever finish by a Briton on any springboard.

Members of the Elite squad who competed at the 2010 Senior World Cup are Peter Waterfield, Stacie Powell (also an Olympian), Max Brick and Chris Mears. All four divers made personal best scores at the meet. Max Brick is Commonwealth gold medallist, partnering Thomas Daley in the synchronised platform event in 2010.

Gary Hunt is the 2010 World Champion in the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series.

The Academy recruits its members primarily through the diving lessons programme or Talent Identification scheme. In 2004 Southampton was chosen as one of only 5 centres in Britain to become a Talent Identification Centre for English Diving, involving selection of youngsters through visits to local schools. The children identified as having outstanding potential during testing are then offered fast-track training in the sport. Another round of this initiative was undertaken in 2009 and the Diving Programme repeated this again during June and July 2010.

There is also an adult diving programme, with members who have achieved great success both on the national and international Masters scene.