Sixteen-year-old Matt Cullen gave the
host nation – and his home pool – the most emphatic ending it could wish for at
the 24th FINA World Junior Diving Championships. He scored four 9.0s, a 9.5,
and a 10.0 on his last dive on the 10m platform to become the first boy to win
gold for Canada this week.
MONTREAL – On the last day of the
FINA World Junior Diving Championships 2022, Montreal-based Matt Cullen put
together two huge dives in the boys’ platform final (for ages 16-18) that
scored 84.15 and 86.40 points en route to becoming the only Canadian boy to win
gold this week.
“I tried to do my best,” Cullen said
of his victory just 10 days before his 17th birthday. “I know there was a lot
of good divers against me so I didn’t know what to expect. There was big
pressure. I had the whole Team Canada in front of me, cheering for me. I’m very
happy about gold.”
Diogo Silva of Brazil also finished
strongly, earning 81.40 points for his last dive – the hardest one in the
competition: a forward 4½ with a 3.7 degree of difficulty. He said he had no
idea where he stood until the last diver’s scores came up – at which point, his
teammates went bonkers, surrounding and embracing him on the slippery pool
deck, then jumping up and down in circles. Silva had taken the silver medal,
21.05 points behind Cullen.
It wasn’t Silva’s first junior world
podium, however. Last year, the 17-year-old who trains in Brasilia took bronze
in synchronised platform. But the key to winning his first individual medal, he
said, was “I believed in myself.” And now?
“I want to celebrate by dancing tonight!”
Robbie Lee of Great Britain captured
the bronze, 11.85 points behind Silva. It was his third medal of these
championships. On Day 1, he claimed bronze in the team event. On Day 4, he
earned silver in synchroninsed platform. The difference on Day 8, he said was
“keeping myself to myself, not watching other people’s dives – only thinking
about my own dives and nothing else” which he hadn’t been doing earlier. “I
just started doing that at the end of [today’s] prelim,” he confessed.
As for the stamina required to make
the podiums in the first and last events, Lee said, “You’ve definitely got to
plan weeks in advance, otherwise you’re just going to be wrecked. It’s tiring.”
Now that he’s done, Lee said he’d
“probably relax, pack all my stuff. I think there’s a party.” After that?
“I’m not too sure,” he said,
“probably senior nationals in England, in February sometime.”
“You’ve definitely got to plan weeks
in advance, otherwise you’re just going to be wrecked. It’s tiring.”
By Robbie Lee, on the stamina needed
to medal in multiple events in Montreal
World Junior High Diving Invitational
Earlier, just before the grand
finale, fans craned their necks to watch an exciting new event: the World
Junior High Diving Invitational. Although it wasn’t officially part of the 24th
FINA World Junior Diving Championships, 32 athletes from 10 nations vied for
scores either by diving from a 12-meter tower (if they were 14-16 years old) or
a 15-meter platform (if they were 17-19). To get to the 15m perch, athletes had
to tread along a narrow suspension bridge near the ceiling of the 1976 Olympic
venue and clip their shoes onto a little zip line to lower them to the pool
deck.
“The response so far has been just
sheer, utter excitement,” said Mitch Geller, chief technical officer for Diving
Canada and a member of FINA’s high diving technical committee. “Everybody
wanted to see how this thing was going to pan out. What’s been most impressive
to me has been the quality of the diving.”
Carter Baker of Canada placed third
in boys’ 15m. He started high diving less than a year ago after competing
provincially at 3m and 10m. As soon as
Baker heard high diving was going to be at the junior world championships, he
said, “I was like: I have to see what I could do with it. My whole idea with
high diving is that if I can become the best at it, I might as well go for it.”
“I was like: I have to see what I
could do with it. My whole idea with high diving is that if I can become the
best at it, I might as well go for it.”
By Carter Baker on high diving
At the same time, Andrea Barnaba of
Italy was thrilled to win the boys 15m event. “Two months ago, my trainer said,
‘Oh, there is a competition. Let’s go!’” he said. “I never train higher than 10
meters. Well, sometimes in Rome I train from 12. I feel the difference from 12,
yeah. Three meters higher, more time to fly.”
Geller called both junior heights
(12m and 15m) “stepping stones” to the senior heights (20m and 27m) but more
than that, he said, “This is a real stepping stone for the discipline itself
and for moving into a FINA-recognized junior high diving world championships.
When that’s done, you’ll see federations start to embrace the new discipline
because it’s part of the whole aquatics picture. We worked hard to develop the
rules, and we got to test them here.”
Written by: Aimee Berg, FINA
Correspondent
Image Source: FINA/Antoine Saito
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