Our 5th competition of the year was G-Star at the John Charles Centre for sport in Leeds, hosted by City of Leeds Diving Club. This competition is formally known as the Northern Cross, but renamed in remembrance of senior international diver Gavin Brown. G-Star is an age-group/ open event competition allowing divers who may be going into their first age-group to compete in the same event as elite, world and Olympic level divers. It was a fun yet intense competition with high standard; entries included Junior World Champion Jack Laugher and Junior European champion Matty Lee. It was a fantastic experience for our divers who have national age-groups and the qualifiers at regional’s coming up. The conditions changed this year to allow for the large amount of entries, all age-groups were to do 6 dives – 3 requireds with a limited DD and 3 optionals.
Luton Diving Club brought 5 divers to G-Star all who were completely new to the competition:
Oliver Simpson, Katherine Kerr and Katie Cripps all competed in the group D age group, results are as follows.
Oliver Simpson’s first competition was on 1m where he finished 10th scoring 141.90. He then moved on to 5m finishing in 8th scoring 134.15. To finish the event with a bang he achieved 5th place on 3m with a score of 166.10 giving him a place in the final. In Oliver’s final he pulled out all the stops and finished his last event off with a forward twist getting 35pts, moving himself into 4th position. Very impressive considering this was his first away Age Group competition.
Katherine Kerr started off competing on 5m finishing her prelim in 3rd position with a score of 182.60, followed by her final which she was able to keep her position on the podium in 3rd place. Katherine’s next competition was on 3m where she also finished in 3rd place with 179.70 (key dive: Forward 2.5 tucked – 40pts!). This placed her in the final for a second time in the competition of which she finished 5th. The final competition was on 1m and once again Katherine finished her prelim in 3rd scoring 175.90 placing her in the final for the third time at this event. In Katherine’s final she stepped it up a notch managing to move up the podium to second place.
Katie Cripps also starting on 5m just missed out on competing in the final for a medal finishing 7th with a score of 124.20. Katie then competed on the 3m, after completing some fantastic dives including a back dive scoring 32pts she finished in 8th scoring 149.30. Katie’s last competition of the meet was on 1m where she finished 7th, once again just missing out on that finals place scoring 145.45. It won’t be long until Katie will be pushing herself into the top 6.
Well done to all of our group D divers and its very exciting to think that all 3 divers are only in the first year of the age group.
James Cripps group C and Henry Biggs group B also competed in all boards, results are as follows:
James started off brilliantly on 3m, not dropping one dive, his inward one and a half somersault was particularly good. 196.8 saw him 4th and into the final. James bettered his optional scores in the final with lovely back and inward 1.5s piked. The final made everyone else step up their game and James finished 5th. Down to 1m for day 2 and again James started strongly putting him in 3rd after 4 dives, his back 1.5 and forward double just missed though which put him down to 9th with 174.65. It was the same story on platform with some fantastic first dives consistently averaging 5.5’s and 6’s, however lower scores on the last two took him down to 12th with 177.95. This really showed the standard of the competition and the importance of staying consistent throughout!
Henry competed his platform first in a very tough field with 4 divers who went to junior elites this year. However Henry certainly didn’t look out of place with his new high tariff dives including back and inward 2.5s. He didn’t start off on his best form however he put in a good forward 2.5 somersault and smashed his back 2.5 tuck for 58.8 points putting him in 6th. With adrenaline high, high inward 2.5 tucked washed over and pushed him into 7th on 220.50. 3m was next and Henry had a very consistent competition finishing 11th with 210.20. On the final day he competed 1m and pulled out some very smart optional dives to finish 9th with 190.10.
In all, G-star was a great competition and highlighted many strengths. Chelsey and Dave are really pleased with all the new dives that were competed and the effort that came from each of the divers. We are also chuffed with the team who stuck together through a tiring 3 days and gave each other great support. Back to hard training now, picking up on the areas that need work and constantly building on confidence ready for regionals and nationals.
Follow the links to watch a selection of video clips from this competition or see the team photos.
