English Schools Swimming Association Division 8 Diving Trials
Cambridge divers leapt to their best to provide half the team to represent Division 8 at the English Schools Swimming Association finals. Daniel Goodfellow in the primary schools event dived to victory beating second place by almost 50 points. His unique standout style was far superior to other divers in his class summed up by a simply impeccable inward one and half somersaults piked from the 3m springboard. Daniels's final score was 168.05. Lucy Cliff competed in the Junior Girls age group and continued the Cambridge divers' winning ways by taking gold with a total of 147.2 points. Lucy will be the first to admit she did not do herself justice and dive to her best ability but not performing to her maximum and still winning is a sign of a true champion.
Moving into the Intermediate Boys age group, Aaron Paul, Nathaniel Doza and Ben Sambrook took to the boards. With the highest degree of difficulty, Aaron claimed gold demonstrating his advanced strength and power finishing most of his dives still above the 3m springboard. Nathaniel proved to the diving community that after a long lay-off he is still a force to be reckoned with finishing in second place. Ben capped a fantastic performance from all divers in the age group placing fourth. Edward Hird diving in the Senior boys event held his nerve after suffering some early set-backs to take the final place on the team with a total of 189.95.
There were excellent performances by other Cambridge divers against strong opposition as divers from all over the region including Chelmsford, Southend, Havering and London hit Parkside Pools. Vivien Cliff finished her senior girls competition in fourth place underpinning the strength and depth Cambridge now has within its club. Competing in the Primary Boys event was Martin Christensen who finished a respectful third in his first major age-group event. Emma Watson and Anna Sambrook finished second and third respectively in the Primary Schools event. Emma narrowly missed out on first place by just a single point but by attempting the hardest dive performed by any of the divers within this age-group, a backward one and half somersaults tucked from the 1m, she proved her credentials as a talent of the future.
All the Cambridge divers are members of the Cambridge Dive Team and train in together in the specialised dry-land training facility at Cherry Hinton Village Centre and at Parkside Pools. The four winning divers will be joined by 3 divers from Southend and one from Havering to represent Division 8 team in the English Schools Finals in Plymouth.
Posted 27/10/2007.
