Diving has become one of Canada’s most reliable medal earners in the Summer Olympics with 12 medals since 1984.
The nation’s best, including Olympic medallists Meaghan Benfeito and Jennifer Abel, will be competing at the Canadian Winter National Diving Championships from today through Sunday at Saanich Commonwealth Place.
“Meaghan and Jennifer are continuing their careers through to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, so the team is looking very promising,” said Lisa Boog, manager of the host Victoria Boardworks Club.
Island divers given strong chances to join the likes of Abel and three-time Olympic-medallist Benfeito at Tokyo 2020 are national 10-metre stars Celina Toth and Bryden Hattie from Boardworks, who will have home-pool advantage at nationals this weekend.
“We are going to see some of the best divers in the country, and the best divers in the world, and Boardworks is going to be among them.” said Boardworks head coach Tommy McLeod.
Toth is the defending women’s national 10-metre champion and 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games finalist. Hattie is the Canadian men’s 10-metre synchro Champion and a 2018 Youth Olympic Games and 2018 Commonwealth Games finalist. Their Boardworks teammates include two-time national medallist Ryan Grover and two-time Canada Games medallist Coral Strugnell.
“This will be a good start to the season with divers earning qualifying spots for World Cup and Grand Prix events,” said Boog.
Those World Cup and Grand Prix meets will be points qualifiers for the Tokyo Olympics.
“It’s a good opportunity to see where everyone stands as we go into the year before the Olympics,” added Boog.
Canada won six diving medals at the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, with the highlights being Abel’s gold and Benfeito’s and Phillipe Gagne’s two silvers each.
Synchro events for the Winter Nationals begin today at 4 p.m. at Saanich Place. The diving Saturday is from 10 a.m. to 3:35 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3:50 p.m. with preliminaries in the morning and finals in the afternoon. Admission is free.
