Cambridge Dive Team (CDT) took a team of 10 divers to Plymouth Diving Centre for the annual Armada Cup event. This event is used as a qualifier for both the National age groups and the British Diving Junior Elites competitions later in the season.
The first day saw the athletes take part in the dryland section of the event which included multiple ‘stations’ covering acrobatic work and physical testing. Divers had to perform key diving skills such as handstands, somersaults and floor work while also being tested on their flexibility, core strength and agility. Here, CTD’s Ryan Church performed well, impressing the judges in both acrobatic and physical sections to place 3rd in his category. Meanwhile, team mate Sophia Howard also caught the judges attention, executing some solid routines to finish the day in third. Also in the girls’ category, Florence Tibbatts placed 9th, Hallie Cave placed 12th and Karina Baxendale finished the day in 19th.
The next event of the day was the Group B Boys 3m preliminary event in which Ben Matthams placed in 4th securing a finals spot, whilst Charles Tibbatts placed 7th. Ben went onto place 6th in the afternoon final, taking away some important competition experience.
The first event for the Junior Elite Boys B was the 1m event. This was a straight final, so the stakes were high, and was won by CDT’s Finn McFarlane! Teammate Rufus Bord placed 4th. Meanwhile, Ryan Church competed in the Boys Group C category, performing well in his first event on the 3m to place 8th overall.
The second day was another good show for Cambridge. The Junior Elite Boys B were up first and Finn again performed well, this time taking the silver medal with Rufus close behind in 5th. Dominic Williams made his first appearance of the weekend in the Boys B 1m event along side team mates Ben and Charles. Dominic placed 7th just missing out on a finals spot whilst Ben placed 10th and Charles placed 11th. Amelia was up next in the Girls Group B platform event in which she placed 11th overall. Cambridge also entered two teams into the 3m synchronised event with Dominic and Ben placing 7th, and the pairing of Rufus and Finn placing 3rd overall.
The third day saw Daisy Halls take to the stage in the Junior Elite Girls A 3m event. Halls put in some good dives amongst a tough field and placed 9th. Ryan also put in a good performance in his 1m event to secure a 10th place finish. The following events saw a flurry of final spots for Cambridge divers. In Girls B 3m event Maddocks-Hunt placed 9th with teammates Amelia and Tobi placing 6th and 5th respectively securing spots in the final. Dominic and Charles performed well in the B Platform prelim with Dominic placing 9th and Charles securing himself a finals spot in 5th place. Meanwhile Rufus put in a strong performance in his Platform event to pick up the days third silver medal in the Junior Elite B category.
The finals for that day saw Tobi placed 5th whilst Amelia stepped up to take home the silver medal. Charles also secured a silver medal in the platform event after performing some clean entries and scoring highly.
The final day played host to the Junior Elite A Girls 1m in which Daisy Halls put in a strong performance to place 4th in the preliminary and see herself through to the final. Ryan church put in a solid performance on the Group C platform event to place 9th overall. Later in the final Daisy put put in some good dives to place 5th overall.
Dan Murphy of CTD said “Armada cup this year was a great event for us. Lots of lessons learnt by many of the divers. The range of athletes we took this year has made the team stronger and put us in a really good position going into the national end of the season”
