Southampton Invitational
The Cambridge Dive Team travelled to the Southampton Invitational in high spirits after a long training period throughout the summer. After some tough competitions with both highs and lows, the Cambridge Dive Team came home with 1 gold and 2 bronze medals whilst finishing 4th in the team event as the top five metre venue in the country.
Matthew Roberts claimed gold in the Boys group A 1 metre and bronze in the Boys group A 3 metre. Matthew had a hard task over the three days as he was not only diving in his age group events but also in the Men's Open competitions where he took on Blake Aldridge, Britain's current Olympian. In the 1m competition Matthew dived consistently well both in the prelims and final. He finished the competition with his hardest dive, a reverse 2½ somersaults. Matthew had been struggling with this dive in training but when he needed to perform he stepped up a gear and put the dive in for 5.5s, which placed him first above Max Brick (current Junior European Diver). Matthew's attitude and standard of diving earned him a lot of respect from both the other divers and coaches.
In the Boys Group C age group, Daniel Goodfellow qualified for the 1 metre final in third with fourth only 5 points behind. Daniel has been known in the past to be a very inconsistent diver but in this event he put that reputation to rest. During the final Daniel appeared calm and focused with a determination to prove to not only the diving community but also to himself that he can be up there with the best. In a closely contested final, Daniel didn't get the best of starts scoring 4.5s on his forward 2½ somersaults with tuck. However, the competitor in Daniel finally came out and he nailed his final two dives for a 6.5 average. Daniel kept hold of the bronze medal with a total of 323.4 points.
The rest of the Cambridge Dive Team also dived with an air of confidence and style. Lucy Cliff was unfortunate to miss out on a couple of finals finishing in seventh place, while the younger members of the squad, Martin Christensen, Emma Watson, and Anna Sambrook all dived well to place in the top twelve out of fields of over twenty five divers. Vivien Cliff put in a solid performance using only basic dives after suffering a shoulder injury and Ben Sambrook showed courage competing brand new dives from the 10m platform.
A fine performance by all was just reward after the summer's intense training.
Posted 23/11/2008