Competitions

These are the reason that the squad divers train each day. Each squad and each individual have target competitions, and the coaches negotiate personal goals for each athlete. Types of event can be broadly split into the following areas:

Novice and Skills events

The competitions can be run by clubs (White Rose novice, Harrogate Novice etc), can be regional or can be national (National novices - Skills level 2 and National Intermediates - Skills level 3). These competitions are intended to find the best athlete that day, and also to all divers to show that they are doing the right skills to progress into higher-level competition in the future. Look at the Calendar page to see when competitions are happening.

Age-Group events

These events can be regional (Yorkshire and North East Counties exist for the Sheffield divers), Club Events (Southampton, Luton, Plymouth and Leeds run club events each year) and National Events (Age-Group Nationals was in Sheffield in 2005, and will be again in 2006). These competitions are of a higher standard, require more difficult dives to be competed, and pit divers against the best of their peers in the country. The best age-group divers at Age-Group Nationals can qualify onto the GB team for Junior Internationals (divers went to compete in Florida, Aachen, Perth and Moscow this year alone).

Senior Events

There is an English Senior Nationals event and a British Nationals each year. These events serve as selections for International events (from Grand Prix events to World, Commonweath and Olympic events). Seniors can also dive in the Club events, and the Regional competitions described above.

Which events to compete

The LTAD (Long Term Athlete Development) planning document on the Documents page details which competitions each level of diver should compete in a season. Each competition can be used as a learning experience towards a better performance in the future. For this reason, squad coaches will discuss with each diver the events they should enter.

Please bear in mind that a number of the competitions in the year involve travelling and staying away from Sheffield. These trips happen as team trips, with trained and experienced Chaperones. The divers travel, stay, train and compete together and represent their club as a team.

EVENT INFORMATION