Diving Update NSW All Schools Championships and School Sport Australia Championships

On Thursday 22nd and Friday 23rd May, 12 students from St Andrews College competed at the NSW All Schools Diving Championships. They competed on springboard and platform against students from all school sectors in NSW. We also had two students, Claire De Vos and Rachael Griffiths, officiate as judges throughout the competition.

For some divers, this was their first State competition while for our year 8 and 9 students, this was a more familiar process. Our divers demonstrated a high standard of diving and came away with two medals and three very close 4th placings. Students competed and placed as detailed below:

12 yr girls Springboard - Lauren Griffiths 4th place

12 yr boys Springboard - Lian Borg 2nd place

13 yr girls Springboard - Stella Borg 4th place, Despina Thimiopolous-Wilson 6th place, Veronica Adamecki 8th place

13 yr boys Springboard - Noah Kinnas 7th place

14 yr girls Springboard - Analise Gregoriou 7th place

14 yr boys Springboard - Eesa Mir 3rd place, Dominic Azar 5th place, Matthew Lemura 6th place

15 yr girls Springboard - Rachael Griffiths 4th place, Claire De Vos 6th place

15-16 yrs girls Platform - Rachael Griffiths 5th place

From the results, Eesa Mir and Rachael Griffiths were offered places on the NSW team to compete at the School Sport Australia Championships to be held in Brisbane in late July/ early August. Unfortunately Eesa did not compete at SSA but Rachael took up the offer and had a wonderful experience representing not only our College but also NSW.

From 26th July - 2nd August Rachael Griffith of year 9 attended her first school national competition as part of the NSW Diving Team competing at the School Sport Australia Games in Brisbane. She represented in the 15 yr Girls Springboard Knockout event, 17yr Girls and Mixed Synchronised event and the Team Synchronised event.

In the knockout event, Rachael made it through the first round of 16 to progress to the top 10. In the second round she performed her signature reverse dive straight and received an impressive score of 37.8 from the judges. Unfortunately, it was just not enough to make the final round of 5 and Rachael graciously bowed out in 6th place. This is a fantastic result and Rachael should be very proud of her individual achievement.

Rachael then competed in the 17yr Girls and Mixed Synchronised event with a diver from Mater Dei Catholic College, Wagga Wagga. The girls dived very well together, gaining good marks for synchronisation. They just lacked a bit of difficulty in their dives but still managed to finish a credible 10th.

The team event is an event unique to these championships where divers are randomly placed in a team of four divers from all over Australia and from any age group. Rachael was in a team with a 12 year old boy from Victoria, an 11 year old girl from Queensland and a 14 year old boy from South Australia. Rachael made several adjustments to her dives to match the others and dived very well.

Not content with only diving, Rachael also officiated by shadow judging at this event. Her assessor remarked that her judging ability demonstrated she would be able to judge independently at this level in future events.

Rachael is the first diver we have had to compete and officiate at School Sport Australia Diving in 8 years and we hope she has inspired many more to follow. We congratulate Rachael on this wonderful achievement and look forward to following her diving journey here at St Andrews College.

I would personally like to congratulate all our divers who have trained consistently and dived so well this season. In addition to the aforementioned achievements, we also had three divers, Despina Thimiopolous-Wilson, Eesa Mir and Rachael Griffiths qualify for the Australian National Championships this year, which is a great achievement. I would like to thank Mrs Hailey Borg for managing the Diving Team so well in my absence, facilitating training and convening competitions. To our sports coordinator Ms Nikitivic and College Principal Dr Kennaugh, I extend my heartfelt appreciation for their continued support of our growing diving program.

Mrs Anita Weaver

Head of Diving