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Southampton Diving Academy recently travelled to Leeds with a team of 15 divers to compete in the annual G-Star Diving Championships. This competition was renamed six years ago in memory of Southampton’s very talented diver, Gavin Brown who was also known as ‘G-Star’. This year’s competition was very popular and with 510 entries there was some very strong competition. The SDA team achieved 16 finals spots and won 7 top three places, 4 silvers and 3 bronze, with two of our divers missing out on a gold medal by less than 1 point.

One of the youngest SDA team members, Angus Kerr, diving in the boys 10/11 years enjoyed a silver and bronze medal in two events. In the 1m Springboard, he improved on his fourth place in the preliminaries to the silver medal position and in the 5m Platform event he maintained his Bronze medal position from the preliminary.

Emily Martin had another successful weekend in the girls 12/13 Years, achieving top three final placings in all three events. She was unfortunate to miss out on three podium finishes by slipping into fourth place on platform, despite putting in a strong fight by finishing with an outstanding inward two and a half somersaults from the 7.5 metre board to achieve 7’s and 7.5’s from the judges, she missed the bronze medal by the narrowest of margins of 0.10 points. Her best medal performance of the weekend was a silver medal in her 3m springboard event where she, again, was unlucky to just miss the gold medal by 0.05 points. Three steady dives on 1m springboard saw her win a bronze medal.

In the boys 12/13 years Brandon Foster also made the finals in all three of his events. Brandon took the platform preliminary by storm, despite some very tough competition he won this event by a clear 20 points with 6 outstanding dives, including 8’s and 8.5’s for his handstand somersault and his two and half somersaults piked from 7.5m. Brandon then went on to take the bronze in the final of this event.

Max Cott, in the boys 14/15 Years, was another SDA diver to agonisingly lose out on a gold medal by the smallest of margins, his platform performance in both the preliminaries and the final was ‘gold-worthy’ but he was just edged into silver position by Leeds/GB Junior European diver, Anthony Harding by 0.55 points. Scott Palmer also achieved a place in each final of this age group.

SDA’s Scottish International platform diver Gemma McArthur was diving amongst Olympic and Junior European GB divers but wasn’t deterred and produced a personal best score in the preliminaries to progress into the finals in third place and then went onto record another personal best score in the finals, coming second only to 2012 Olympian Rebecca Gallantree. 15 Year old Gemma also came 4^th with a personal best score in the 1m springboard where she had qualified in 6^th place from the preliminaries.

This was a very high standard competition which showcased many Elite, GB Junior European and several 2012 Olympic divers and, I am sure, many future Olympians. Our youngsters proved that SDA can achieve at this level, they secured places in 16 finals and then battled for top spots with a great deal of success. There were some terrific individual performances in all age groups with many of our divers constantly improving and returned from this competition with personal best scores.

Full Results:

Boys 16+ Years 1m Springboard

15^th Lewys Oakley, 21^st Thomas Graham

Boys 16+ Years 3m Springboard

13^th Lewys Oakley, 23^rd Thomas Graham

Boys 16+ Years Platform

9^th Thomas Graham

Boys 14/15 Years 1m Springboard

6^th Scott Palmer, 9^th Max Cott, 10^th Robbie Brodie

Boys 14/15 Years 3m Springboard

6^th Scott Palmer, 9^th Max Cott, 14^th Robbie Brodie

Boys 14/15 Years Platform

2^nd Max Cott, 5^th Scott Palmer

Boys 12/13 Years 1m Springboard

6^th Brandon Foster, 15^th Cameron Gammage

Boys 12/13 Years 3m Springboard

6^th Brandon Foster, 11^th Cameron Gammage

Boys 12/13 Years Platform

3^rd Brandon Foster, 10^th Cameron Gammage

Boys 10/11 Years 1m Springboard

2^nd Angus Kerr

Boys 10/11 Years 5m Platform

3^rd Angus Kerr

Girls 16+ Years 1m Springboard

4^th Gemma McArthur, 10^th Mollie James

Girls 16+ Years 3m Springboard

7^th Gemma McArthur, 8^th Mollie James

Girls 16+ Years Platform

2^nd Gemma McArthur, 6^th Lauren Grinstead, 7^th Mollie James

Girls 14/15 Years 1m Springboard

10^th Lucy Hawkins

Girls 14/15 Years 3m Springboard

8^th Lucy Hawkins

Girls 14/15 Years Platform

11^th Lucy Hawkins

Girls 12/13 Years 1m Springboard

3^rd Emily Martin, 28^th Lauren Bailey

Girls 12/13 Years 3m Springboard

2^nd Emily Martin, 22^nd Lauren Bailey

Girls 12/13 Years Platform

4^th Emily Martin, 23^rd Lauren Bailey

Girls 10/11 Years 1m Springboard

10^th Tia Pritchard

Girls 10/11 Years 3m Springboard

11^th Tia Pritchard

Girls 10/11 Years Platform

6^th Tia Pritchard