National Novice Springboard Diving Championships
Two divers from the City of Cambridge Dive Team pulled out all the stops to win bronze medals at the National Novice Springboard Diving Championships. It was a long journey to Plymouth for these first Nationals of the season but it turned out to be a most successful weekend for all 5 Cambridge divers.
Young Sharnia Mockford who only celebrated her 9th birthday last weekend set the ball rolling in the first event for girls under 10 years. Diving in her first National event she showed great composure and put in 4 excellent dives with only her reverse dive just slightly below her best, scoring a total of 98.45 points for a great bronze medal only bettered by a diver from Plymouth and from Sheffield. Sharnia who lives in Melbourn has only been diving with the club for just over a year but has made fantastic progress and is a real talent for the future.
Nick Orlowski diving in the boys 12/13 years saved his very best diving of the season for this event and scored an excellent 110.20 points for the bronze medal, just 0.7 points from the silver position won by a diver from the strong Bagiu Diving Institute. Nick, who lives in DeFreville Avenue and attends Parkside Community College, has been making steady progress in his diving during his 2 years with the club. He performed all his dives really well and showed great consistency with 6's on all his dives.
In the girls 10/11 years Victoria Way also produced her best diving to secure a most creditable 10th place scoring 100.90 points to break the elusive century for the first time.
The highest standard event of the weekend was in the girls 12/13 years where the top 17 all broke the 100 points battier. Cambridge divers Sophie Clark and Yazmin Watson dived very well to take 8th (108.80) and 12th (106.60) places respectively. Sophie, nursing a foot injury was badly placed after a poor back dive but pulled herself towards the leader board with 3 fine final dives. Yazmin started well, lying in the top 6 after 3 rounds but unfortunately slipped back in the final rounds.
Said Head Coach Sharyn Bord: "This is a fine start to the National
event season. We had not expected our team of youngsters to do quite so
well and all credit goes to their hard work over the winter. In addition,
our diving coaches have set out more exacting programmes for their divers
and this plan is obviously helping to raise the competitive standard
within the club. It all points to being a great season for the Cambridge
Team."
Posted 03/06/2003