Southampton Invitational 2006
Divers from Southampton Diving Academy were in fine form at the Southampton Invitational Competition held at the Quays, Eddie Read Swimming and Diving Complex at the end of October, taking the team trophy with almost double the points of their nearest rivals.
Fielding a very strong team of 38 divers the club came away with a total of 38 medals: 14 gold, 13 silver and 11 bronze.
Leading from the top Blake Aldridge (25) took the title in all three of his events, giving his sponsors, B&Q, who had come to support him, a real thrill. His score of 429 points on highboard will be sufficient to qualify him to compete in the World Championships next spring if he delivers the same level of performance in Manchester in December.
The girls were given their lead by Charly Tomkys (21) who also took golds on 1m and 3m springboards.
Sam Knapp (13), Georgie Wingrove (11) and Chris Farrow (14) were also gold medalists, taking their titles ahead of divers on National programmes.
Taking 2 golds and a silver medal, Georgie thrilled the crowds with classy performances on every board, making the top score of any diver in each of the three finals. She did particularly well to compete a dive learnt only the previous week, an inward 2 ½ somersaults with tuck from the 7m board, which attracted excellent scores from the judges.
Sam, a relative newcomer to diving, who only joined the sport 18 months ago through the talent identification programme which was carried out in selected Southampton schools, dived consistently well throughout his events, and challenging some of Britain’s international divers. His performance will have brought him a step closer to an invitation to the Regional Junior Talent Programme.
Having had a break from competitive diving Chris came back in blistering style to take 2 gold medals ahead of one of the Britain’s Junior internationals with a brilliant consistent performance.
Recently joining Southampton Diving Academy from Cambridge, Sophie Clark (15) put in an excellent performance to take a medal of each colour and have a significant input to the team’s final result.
Jack Clewlow (16) also had a good weekend, taking 2 golds and a bronze medal and scoring TASS (Talented Athlete Support Scheme) qualifying standards on both the 3m and highboard.
Ciaran O’Reilly (17) gave a good performance on 1m to take the gold by a clear margin from his nearest rival.
Senior Coach from the club, Fito Gutierrez, was delighted with the outcome. “It was a great weekend when we showed what quality the club can deliver at the Elite end of the sport”, he said.
Chamois Ripping Competition
At the end of Saturday’s competitive finals we staged a purely fun competition, sponsored by Freaky Fish.
Known as the ‘Chamois ripping’ competition, the divers had to perform one chamois rip on the 3m springboard and one on any highboard. The divers followed the chamois into the pit and collected it. Just the ‘rip’ of the chamois was judged (dd 1.0)
This event was staged in memory of David Bratt. David was a diver of our Olympic coach, Lindsey Fraser. He sadly passed away in 2004 at the young age of 26. Each diver paid a £1 entry fee and all proceeds will be donated to the Royal Marsden Leukaemia Trust.
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