The best of British Diving travel to Southend this week ready to show their true potential as they battle for honours at the British National Diving Cup from22 – 24 Jan.
With selection to the LEN European Championships and the FINA World Cup up for grabs competition will be tight and world medallists Tom Daley, Jack Laugher, Rebecca Gallantree and Chris Mears will be ready to showcase the hard work undertaken through the winter.
The British National Diving Cup will see two new pairs debuting in the men’s and women’s 10m Synchro as Daley teams up with Daniel Goodfellow and Tonia Couch will dive with Lois Toulson.
At the 2015 World Championships Great Britain qualified four individual quota places and one synchro quota place for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and the remaining Olympic places will be up for grabs at the FINA World Cup next month.
The British National Diving Cup will allow National Performance Director Alexei Evangulov to see where the athletes are at this early stage of the season.
“The British National Diving Cup is a going to be a strong competition and a good opportunity to see where the athletes are ahead of what will be a busy year,” Evangulov said.
“I’m excited to see our divers in a competition format again after a solid block of winter training. I know all of the athletes have been working really hard and they will show their development at the weekend.
“We have two new synchro pairs and I have been happy with how they have trained together. It’s a good test to see them in competition at the National Cup but I have confidence that they will compete well and impress the judges.”
Daley, who won bronze at the 2012 Olympic Games, added: “It’s been good training with Dan and I think that it’ll be exciting to get out and do synchro again. I haven’t competed in the event since 2014 when I was up there with James [Denny] at the Commonwealth Games.
“Dan and I know each other well and I think the partnership will work well and getting competition experience under our belts will be great.”
European Games 10m Champion Toulson said: “I have learnt a lot so far from training with Tonia and I know that she’ll still have loads to teach me when we compete together.
“To be up on 10m alongside someone with her experience is amazing and it gives me more confidence to know I can do a good dive. We’ve trained really hard during the winter so I can’t wait to get out there and compete at the weekend and see what happens.”
Swimming news courtesy of British Swimming.