Active Nation’s SDA Diver Emily Is …

Active Nation’s Southampton Diving Academy (SDA) recently attended The British Elite Junior Diving Championships with 8 of their top junior divers and returned with a national champion!

This prestigious competition is the highlight of the domestic junior calendar with the top British divers aged 14-18 Years battling it out for honours. This competition not only serves to find our National Junior Elite Champions but, more importantly, it is the event used to select our Junior International Teams. This year it was held at The Life Centre in Plymouth and the standard of British Junior diving was impressive.

SDA’s Emily Martin comfortably secured the title of Girls 14/15 years British National Junior Elite Champion on 1m springboard, where she won both the preliminary and the final. Emily was on top form and demonstrated some impressive diving in a very competitive field, scoring personal best scores in all her preliminary and final events, finishing ahead of Junior GB divers to win a hat trick of medals.

Not satisfied with her 5^th place in the preliminaries on 3m, she upped her game in the final to lift herself into the silver medal position in this event. In her platform final she retained her second place from the preliminary to, again, win the silver medal, making her the top girl in her age group.

Emily has now been confirmed as part of the Junior GB team competing at a Junior International in Dresden, Germany later this month and also Junior European Championships in Moscow, Russia in June. Emily’s coach, Jack Clewlow, has also been selected as coach for the Dresden International.

Tanya Watson and Lucy Hawkins also competed on all three boards in the girls 14/15 years. Tanya scored personal best scores on all three boards and secured a place in the platform final where she finished in 6^th place. Lucy also achieved personal best scores in both springboard events, finishing her 3m competition with two fantastic dives.

Sarah White, Gemma M^cArthur and Madeleine Angell all dived in the girls 16/18 Years age group, Gemma & Madeleine secured a place in the platform final. Madeleine scored personal best scores in both the preliminary and final of this event, finishing in 5^th place, just behind teammate Gemma M^cArthur in 4^th place with Sarah in 8^th. Gemma and Sarah went on to compete in the 3m event, where Gemma finished in 7^th place just a fraction away from the finals and Sarah finished in 9^th.

Tanya Watson and Emily Martin teamed up in the Girls 14-18 years 3m Synchro, the girls executed a fantastic last dive to lift themselves into 5^th place.

Two boys represented SDA, Brandon Foster in the boys 14/15 years and Max Cott in the Boys 16/18 years. Both Brandon and Max secured their place in the platform finals where Max attracted 8’s from the judges with his impressive back two and half somersaults from 7.5m taking him into the final in 3rd place, where he was just nudged into 4^th. Brandon progressed into his platform final in 5^th place finally finishing 6^th. Brandon also competed in the boys 14/15 years 1m and 3m events making the final on 1m, finishing in 5^th place.

Jack said: “I was extremely pleased with the performance of the Southampton team. All of the divers have worked so hard in order to prepare for this event. It was a pleasure to see all of their efforts rewarded.”

Feeling inspired? Give your nearest Active Nation venue a call to see how we can help get you swimming and diving.

• Posted on: Wednesday, April 15th, 2015 by Bita Rezaei