McKay dives into world spotlight
It wasn’t long ago that Blythe Hartley was the toast of diving in Calgary.
She was an Olympic medal hope for the city and the nation and parlayed that into a successful career by claiming bronze at the 2004 Athens Summer Olympic Games and being a five-time Commonwealth Games medallist and twotime world champion.
Fast-forward a decade and another young Calgarian is making a name for herself as an Olympic threat as a diver for Canada.
Caeli McKay, 18, is turning heads internationally after growing up as a young diver at Repsol Centre, where this week’s FINA Diving Grand Prix Canada Cup is being showcased through Sunday.
“I grew up here with, basically, Blythe Hartley being my inspiration,” said 18-year-old McKay, who trained for years in Calgary before making a move to Montreal two years ago where she’s since hooked up with Olympic medallist Meaghen Benfeito to form one of the world’s top 10-metre synchronized diving duos.
“But we also only saw Meaghen and all the other Olympians on TV and on the internet. So I was starstruck when I moved to Montreal, so it’s a big adjustment. But now we’re quite good friends and down to earth with them.”
FEATURE PAIR
Certainly McKay and Benfeito have clicked as a team, making them a feature pair to watch this week at Repsol. The two have worked together for the last season-and-a-half, refining their performance into a routine — albeit special — effort from meet to meet.
That said, though, the return to the home tank for McKay is anything but routine.
“Of course, there’s always jitters — we’re always nervous,” McKay said. “And being in my hometown — and even when we dive in Canada — there’s always a little bit of pressure, but we handle it well.”
Prior to the synchro event, however, McKay hopes to find happiness in individual competition Friday at 1:30 p.m. in the women’s open platform prelims of the Canada Cup.
The international meet continues with preliminary and semifinal rounds Friday (10 a.m. to 5:25 p.m. and follows with finals Saturday (11:20 a.m. to 5 p.m.) and Sunday (11:30 a.m. to 5:05 p.m.).
Live broadcasting begins Friday at 3:15 p.m. on cbc.ca.
Thursday’s competition saw Canadian star Abel and Pamela Ware, finish one-two in one women’s open 3m semifinal with 318.15 and 302.10 points respectively with Russia’s Mariia Poliakova third with 274.50 points. The other event semi saw China’s Xiaohui Huang dive to a 353.30 first-place showing. followed by China’s Yiwen Chen at 297.20 in second and Great Britain’s Alicia Bragg third with 287.70.
In one of the men’s open platform semis, China’s Zelin Yao topped the charts with 407.10, followed by Great Britain’s Matthew Lee at 399.50 and Italy’s Vladimir Barbu in third at 386.95.
The other event semi saw China’s Yu Duan dive best, collecting a whopping 475.30 points, while Australia’s Domonic Bedggood finished second with 433.75 and Vincent Riendeau, of Montreal, was third with 399.75.