Harrogate Grammar School students, Tom Gugan and Rosie Wilson-Burrell gave personal best performances at the North East Regional Diving Championships held in Leeds at the John Charles Sports Centre on the 11th January 2014.
The competition was open to Novice, Age Group and Elite divers from Northumberland, Durham and Yorkshire. The Year 8 students who are both members of Harrogate District Diving Club competed in the Age 12-13 Boys and Girls Platform diving events coming in 2nd and 4th place respectively. Both gave consistent performances across all of their dives and achieved new personal best scores.
Tom achieved a score of 179.65 and performed two of his dives from the 7.5m platform. His route to a silver medal was boosted by a massive score of 49.50 points for his Arm-stand one and a half somersaults from this height including a near perfect 9.0 from one of the judges.
Rosie gave a solid performance across all of her dives. 40.00 points for her inwards one and a half somersault dive helped her to a well-deserved fourth place with a score of 154.55, only a point behind 3rd place diver Alice Brown from Leeds Diving Club.
Both young divers easily exceeded the qualification score to enable them to compete in the ASA National Age Group Championships which will be held at Sheffield Ponds Forge Centre in July. Their next challenge in February will take them to Plymouth, Tom Daley’s home club to the Armada Cup where they will compete against the top junior divers across the UK.
