Date: 17th July 2009
Silver success for junior Leeds divers
Two young athletes from Leeds are starting to make a big splash in the world of diving after claiming silver medals in the recent European Junior Diving Championships.
Fourteen-year-old Hannah Starling and 15-year-old Saffron Sutcliffe teamed up superbly in the three metre synchronised category in the 14-18s section of the event held in Budapest to take a battling second place.
In a closely-fought contest the Leeds pair started very strongly and were second after the first two compulsory dives, just behind the Russian duo of Natalia Zamyatina and Diana Chaplieva. In the next two rounds the Russians moved comfortably clear but a four-way battle between the Great Britain pair, Ukraine, Sweden and Greece developed for second place with positions changing after each dive.
Going into the final round Starling and Sutcliffe were sitting in fifth place, but they saved their best for last performing their highest-scoring dive of the competition when they needed it most to move ahead of their rivals and clinch a superb silver medal.
The duo are part of Leeds City Council’s Diving Training Scheme based at The Aquatics Centre at the John Charles Centre for Sport, and are coached by Edwin Jongejans, who is himself a former world champion.
Leeds City Council Executive Member for Leisure Councillor John Procter said:
“Congratulations to Hannah and Saffron for their fantastic achievement of winning the silver medal. We are all very proud of their achievement, and look forward to them and the rest of the City of Leeds juniors enjoying even more success as their diving careers develop.
“At all levels the City of Leeds squad is enjoying amazing success at the moment, and that is great credit to all the divers and the efforts of the coaching staff who are clearly making the most of having the wonderful Aquatics Centre to use for their training.”
This latest success continues a fantastic run of form by Alwoodley diver Starling, who shot to prominence by beating a host of Britain’s best senior-level divers on her way to fourth place in the Women’s 3m Springboard event at the British Championships in February at the age of just 13.
Her impact there caught the eye of National Performance Director Alexei Evangulov, who selected Starling to take part in the Senior European Championships held in Turin in April, were she finished in a creditable 14th place in her first international appearance at senior level.
Starling will be hoping to follow in the footsteps of fellow City of Leeds divers Charles Calvert and Rebecca Gallantree, who will be representing Great Britain at the World Diving Championships which take place in Rome next week. Fellow City of Leeds diver Sarah Barrow had also qualified to compete in Italy, but a back injury has unfortunately ruled her out.
Notes to editors:
Leeds City Council’s Leeds Diving Training Scheme is managed by Adrian Hinchliffe and has been running since 1986. The scheme provides opportunities in the sport of diving for all ages and from recreational to elite level. In total there are over 300 people taking part in the scheme on a daily and weekly basis, making it one of the biggest diving programmes in Britain.
For further information about the scheme contact Adrian Hinchliffe at Adrian.hinchliffe@leeds.gov.uk, Edwin Jongejans at Edwin.jongejans@leeds.gov.uk or call 0113 395 736