|
Members of the Southampton Diving Academy dominated the first Amateur Swimming Association South East Region Elite Age Groups & Championship level 4 & 5 Competition held at the Quays on the 1st & 2nd April. Still inspired by the recent return of their team mates from the Commonwealth Games, where Peter Waterfield took a silver medal on the highboard, the home team gave some great performances which promise to bring continued international success to the club in years to come. The most successful diver for the weekend was Georgia Wingrove(10) who came away with a haul of 7 gold medals. Winning 7 out of the 9 events that she entered Georgia dived consistently well throughout the competition, demonstrating that she is a talent to be watched for the future. Chris Mears (13) also had some good results taking golds on 1m & 3m springboard for the elite age group with margins of almost 100 points, and following up with a win on 3m springboard in the junior springboard championships, this time only beating rival from Southampton Diving Academy Jack Clewlow (15) by 3.7 points. In the boys elite age group C on platform a close competition came to a climactic end with an inward 2 ½ somersaulting dive winning high scores for Max Gennings (12) to take gold over Sam Knapp (11). Ryan Strudwick (11) was just pushed into the bronze position, only 0.7 points behind Sam. In the Men’s Senior 3m Springboard championships a strong field saw a welcome comeback for Gavin Brown (21). After a well earned break in India a fitter and healthier looking Gavin took gold over Blake Aldridge, who has recently rejoined Southampton Diving Academy. Tom Owens put in a good performance to take bronze in a high scoring competition, where spectators were treated to an outstanding display. Tom Also pulled out some great dives to score a personal best on 1m springboard with 341.35 points taking gold over Blake Aldridge who scored 334.95, Gary Hunt fresh from the commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia took the bronze with 317.15 points Taking 3 golds and a silver Max Brick (13) showed off the flair and ability that has earned him a place on the prestigious TASS 2012 programme, a national initiative which aims to prepare him to compete when the Olympics come to London in 6 years time. Along with team mate Chris Mears, Max will be jetting off to Germany with the British junior team at the end of April to compete in the Aachen Cup. Blake Aldridge put in an outstanding performance in the senior men’s platform championships, scoring 423.80 points to seal a gold some 198.7 points in front of second place Max Brick with 225.10. Max Gennings on 179.20 took the bronze. Other champions were Alex Cameron (11) and Anna Bennett-Britton (17), who took 3 golds apiece and Emily Alderman (14) and Ciaran O’Reilly (17) who both came away with 2 gold medals. Newly appointed Assistant Diving Development Coach, Juan Gutierrez Munoz, aka “Fito” was very pleased to see some great results and high scores “It has been good to see these divers in action” He said “ I have not been here at Southampton Diving Academy that long so to watch them perform in competition I can see who holds their nerves under pressure and I have not been disappointed. These were great results.” Full Results:
|