Three gold medals came from Ruby Bower on 3M, William Hallam on 3M & Sam Thornton on 1M. In the Girls Group C events Ruby fought her way to the gold ahead of divers from Sheffield, Crystal Palace,  Albatross & Edinburgh Diving Clubs. Also diving in the Girls Group C events were two guest Divers from China, Shoulin Song & Wanqi Liu. The guests dived amazingly throughout and were honoured with a place on the medal rostrum but were not allocated medals as is normally the case for Divers that compete as guests.

The event became very tough for Ruby as she was later expected to compete in two preliminaries in one day. Ruby showed her strength throughout as she won a place in the final in each preliminary. This meant that Ruby had four events in one day along with four training sessions. Despite this, Ruby took the Gold & Silver medals in 3M & Platform.

Sam Thornton dived exceptionally well in all of his events but this really paid off in the Men’s 1M. Sam finished the preliminary in 1^st place and went on to dive better then European Junior team mate Daniel Goodfellow, and Divers from the City of Leeds Diving Club to take the 1M Gold medal.

William Hallam had a tough battle with Plymouth diver Matthew Dixon in each of his events but William had a slight edge over Dixon by the end of the event as he left the competition with one gold and two silvers. William hit some incredible scores on 3M performing 105b (Front 2 & ½ Somersaults Piked) for 7’s, a dive score of 50.40.

Charlotte Horsman had an incredible start to her 1M event with an opening dive score of 33.15. The 201a (Back Dive Straight) really highlighted the grace that is required for the sport of diving, this was a great example of how beautiful diving can be.

Newbie’s Holly Waxman, Ellie Hargreaves, Jake Rose and Owen Passmore all made Bradford proud in the Group D events. Holly, Ellie & Jake all made finals and Holly & Jake both took a bronze medal home with them, Jake for 1M & Holly for Platform.

The team traveled for five hours to reach the event and faced days of over 12 hours long, which is common for Diving events, but each of the team members trained hard and performed to the best of their ability throughout. Big thanks go to Harrogate District Diving Club who offered coaching support until Becky arrived, following a flat tyre on Nicole’s car.

Over the course of the event the team secured places in 16 finals, leading to a total of 11 medals. The combined results of the divers put Bradford Esprit fifth overall in the team points. Full results are available at DiveRecorder.

February 16-19 2012

Team Divers: 17

Medals: 11

3 Gold, 5 Silver, 3 Bronze

Gold Will Hallam 3m

Gold Sam Thornton 1m

Gold Ruby Bower, 3m

Silver Will Hallam Platform

Silver Will Hallam 1m

Silver Mike Jones Platform

Silver, Ruby Bower, Platform

Bronze Holly Waxman Platform

Bronze Sam Thornton 3m

Bronze, Jake Rose, 1m

Bronze, Sam Thornton Platform

Finals:16

Jake Rose, Platform

Jake Rose, 1m

Max Roper, 3m

Mike Jones, Platform

Mike Jones, 3m

Mike Jones, 1m

Sam Thornton, Platform

Sam Thornton, 3

Sam Thornton 1m

Will Hallam 3m

Will Hallam 1m

Will Hallam Platform

Holly Waxman Platform

Ellie Hargreaves Platform

Ruby Bower, Platform

Ruby Bower, 3m

Team points: 288, 5^th

Timetable here                                                           Results here

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“Two of our Elite Divers recently took part in the first major Senior Competition of the year, in the run up to the Olympics. The event was held in Southends brand new pool which includes one of the best dryland diving facilities in the country. “

Michael and Sam competed in all three individual events, 1 Meter and 3 Meter Springboard and Platform. Sam also teamed up with Daniel Goodfellow (Cambridge) for the 3 Meter Synchro event.

Becky said: – “The boys were up against some tough competition with the best of British divers competing in the hope of being selected for the 2012 Olympics later this year in London.”

Michael and Sam managed to hold their own against the older, more experienced divers and performed some amazing dives. The highlight for the club was the Junior Gold medal won by Sam and Daniel for their astonishing performance in the Synchro event. The full results were: -

Michael

1M 5^th Junior

3M 4^th Junior

Platform 9^th Junior

Sam

1M 4^th Junior

3M 6^th Junior

Platform 3^rd Junior/5^th Senior

3M Synchro 1^st Junior/2^nd Senior

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Congratulations to all the British Divers.

Look out for future Live Diving Broadcasts on BradfordEsprit TV.

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