The country’s top divers are in Calgary to compete in a national meet this weekend as they prepare for a number of upcoming world events, including the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
The Winter National Diving Championships get underway on Friday at Repsol Sports Centre and 41 athletes will represent 12 clubs from across Canada at the event.
“This is our first national championship of the new quadrennial, and everyone has their sights set already on Tokyo 2020,” said Mitch Geller, Chief Technical Officer of Diving Canada.“It’s very fitting that we’re hosting our event in a city that has a rich history with diving and has been one of the top contributors of world-class divers over the past several decades.”
Olympian and World Championships medalist François Imbeau-Dulac, World Cup finalist and defending champion on 10m, Celina Toth and two-time World Junior Championships bronze medalist, Olivia Chamandy are all taking part on the weekend.
CTV Calgary’s Athlete of the Week and local talent Margo Erlam, 14, will also compete against the country’s top contenders. She will be joined by fellow junior national champions Tatiana Conn, 12, and Thomas Ciprick, 13, who are also from Calgary.
“It’s great that we can bring all the top divers from around the country to inspire the local athletes,” said Geller. “Calgary has some of the best junior divers right now, coming up under Diving Canada’s 2016 Junior Coach of the Year, Charlie Tu of Dive Calgary. We’ll get a glimpse of what we have in store in terms of future Olympians going forward to Tokyo 2020 and beyond.”
Caeli McKay, a synchro diver from Calgary who now lives in Montreal, is in the city to visit family and support her teammates.
“We have a lot of up-and-comers here, mostly for experience. A lot of people also strive to make national team and qualify for training camps. Mostly just for experience,” said the 17-year-old. “They’re here practicing. We’re going to be competing for the next three weeks so it wasn’t ideal to compete this weekend, mostly here to cheer on two of our team that are competing, coming to Germany and then China.”
Six events are on the schedule and the event is open to the public.
For more information and the event schedule click HERE.
