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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 4th with a personal best score in the 1m springboard where she had qualified in 6th 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
15th Lewys Oakley, 21st Thomas Graham
Boys 16+ Years 3m Springboard
13th Lewys Oakley, 23rd Thomas Graham
Boys 16+ Years Platform
9th Thomas Graham
Boys 14/15 Years 1m Springboard
6th Scott Palmer, 9th Max Cott, 10th Robbie Brodie
Boys 14/15 Years 3m Springboard
6th Scott Palmer, 9th Max Cott, 14th Robbie Brodie
Boys 14/15 Years Platform
2nd Max Cott, 5th Scott Palmer
Boys 12/13 Years 1m Springboard
6th Brandon Foster, 15th Cameron Gammage
Boys 12/13 Years 3m Springboard
6th Brandon Foster, 11th Cameron Gammage
Boys 12/13 Years Platform
3rd Brandon Foster, 10th Cameron Gammage
Boys 10/11 Years 1m Springboard
2nd Angus Kerr
Boys 10/11 Years 5m Platform
3rd Angus Kerr
Girls 16+ Years 1m Springboard
4th Gemma McArthur, 10th Mollie James
Girls 16+ Years 3m Springboard
7th Gemma McArthur, 8th Mollie James
Girls 16+ Years Platform
2nd Gemma McArthur, 6th Lauren Grinstead, 7th Mollie James
Girls 14/15 Years 1m Springboard
10th Lucy Hawkins
Girls 14/15 Years 3m Springboard
8th Lucy Hawkins
Girls 14/15 Years Platform
11th Lucy Hawkins
Girls 12/13 Years 1m Springboard
3rd Emily Martin, 28th Lauren Bailey
Girls 12/13 Years 3m Springboard
2nd Emily Martin, 22nd Lauren Bailey
Girls 12/13 Years Platform
4th Emily Martin, 23rd Lauren Bailey
Girls 10/11 Years 1m Springboard
10th Tia Pritchard
Girls 10/11 Years 3m Springboard
11th Tia Pritchard
Girls 10/11 Years Platform
6th Tia Pritchard