Winning divers in the groove at Armada Cup (From Echo)

Winning divers in the groove at Armada Cup

8:00pm Thursday 21st March 2013 in Sport By Paul Alton

SOUTHEND Diving pair Tyler Humphreys and Duran Omer claimed gold medals while competing at Olympic medalist Tom Daley’s home pool.

The pair were among a team of seven divers from Southend Swimming and Diving Centre who competed at the Armada Cup diving championships at Plymouth Life Centre.

And there were bronze medals for Summer-Jasmine Sweeney and Michael Leask to leave Southend Diving head coach Damian Ball full of praise for his athletes.

“It was an outstanding set of results for our team of divers,” Ball said.

“A solid team performance saw the club finish in fourth place in the team points.”

Nine-year-old Humphreys made the final of all three of his events, winning golds in the 1m and 3m springboard events and finishing a respectable sixth against more experienced competitors in the 10m platform.

Omer, 16, used the competition as part of his final preparations for next week’s GB Elite Junior National Championships in Leeds.

He claimed fifth in the 3m springboard before trying out a new routine with a high degree of difficulty in his preferred 1m springboard event. That gamble was rewarded with a gold medal.

Sweeney was also using the event as a warm up for the national championships and finished two points behind second place to claim a bronze in the 1m springboard. She used a new dive in the 3m springboard and finished fourth, an agonising two points off a bronze medal.

Australian-born Leask, 23, claimed his bronze in the platform competition and was sixth in the 1m springboard event.

Connor Van-Dal was selected from Southend Diving’s primary schools talent identification in 2011 and showed his progress by making the finals in all three events, finishing sixth in the 1m, fifth in the 3m and fourth on the platform.