Childhood friends looking to make a splash
Calgary's Erlam, Wilson competing at Canada Cup of Diving at MNP this weekend
What began as a splash of fun has turned into Olympic possibilities for Calgary divers and childhood friends Margo Erlam and Aimee Wilson.
Standing side by side on diving boards of the world just may get them to the 2028 Olympic Summer Games in Los Angeles.
“You're asking an interesting question, because there's some talk in the air for us,” said a beaming Erlam, when the query of an Olympic synchronized team was posed to the city athletes during the 2024 Canada Cup of Diving — on now through Sunday at the MNP Community & Sport Centre.
“We definitely have some talk behind the scenes about seeing this pair out to 2028,” added Wilson, with a giggle. “So stay tuned.”
Another Olympic diving threat from Calgary would be well worth tuning into come the L.A. Games.
The three-metre springboard tandem of Erlam and Wilson would further boost the sport around here after Caeli Mckay — the city's 10-metre platform specialist — has put diving on the map with her recent Olympic pursuits.
“When we decided to come together as a team, it was kind of really just a fun little joke,” Wilson said. “We were in Italy last year, and we decided to just try, with never having practised together. And then we actually ended up getting pretty good.”
Enough so that they are in the spotlight for the four days of this international meet in Calgary.
Preliminaries and repechages in all events wrapped up Friday. Now it's on to finals Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday 's schedule features the men's three-metre final (10 a.m.), the women's three-metre synchro final (12:10 p.m.), the men's 10-metre sync final (2:25 p.m.) and the women's 10-metre final (4:15 p.m.).
Sunday's finals are the women's three-metre (10 a.m.), the men's three-metre synchro (noon), the women's 10-metre synchro (2:30 p.m.) and the men's 10-metre (4:20 p.m.).
“It's very interesting for me to come back,” said Erlam, who trains out of Saskatoon, where she's a student at the University of Saskatchewan. “I moved away six years ago, and every year I come back, it's just a different vibe every time, which is kind of cool. But it is very nice to be diving with this team in particular. It's all my best friends, and we get to do synchro in our hometown. That's pretty cool.”
“It's super special to be back in the hometown,” said Wilson, who enjoyed an NCAA diving career that wrapped up with her graduation from Texas A&M. “For me, I moved back here, and I now live and train here since December of 2022. But it's just extra special, especially us doing synchro, because we grew up training here and we started diving together in this pool.”
Indeed, Erlam and Wilson actually started at the downtown facility when “we were babies,” said Erlam.
“I started diving when I was five, and then she showed up a couple of years later,” said Wilson, 24. “We grew up as best friends. We used to spend every weekend together at her house.”
So maybe it's about time they finally teamed up together?
“I think it's one of my favourite pairings just because of the history that we have together and the chemistry that we have,” said Erlam, 21. “Like we have a lot of fun when we dive together.”
“Yeah,” added Wilson. “This is so much fun. So now this will be probably our fourth competition together.”
Unfortunately, their synchro results won't help them in the short term — in particular, that goal of the Olympics, which begin in July in Paris.
“So there's no synchro spot for 2024,” Wilson said. “So our synchro really doesn't mean too much here this weekend.
“We're using this one more as just getting the nerves and jitters out before trials,” added Erlam. “We want to show the hometown kind of where we're about to go and give them a show.”
Where they are about to go — individually — is into the fray of competition for the Paris Games.
That's at the Canadian Diving Trials and Summer Senior National Championships, May 17-19 in Windsor, Ont., with a handful of divers — including two-time Olympian Pamela Ware — in the mix for Canada's three-metre springboard berth.
“We only have one individual spot, and there's about five of us Canadian girls vying for one spot,” Wilson said. “So it's gonna be a stressful couple of weeks coming up for us.”
“I'm feeling confident, but the girls that are vying for that spot are the best that we have, some are the best in the world,” Erlam said. “So it's going to be very difficult, but I'm excited. We're all good people, and I think I'll be proud of whoever gets to go.”
“I think that all the girls are so talented,” added Wilson. “And we all will make Canada proud whoever makes it.”
But long term, it's Erlam and Wilson who hope to do Canada — and Calgary — proud in synchro style.
“I've come a long way,” Wilson said. “We definitely have to change things to dive beside each other. I think diving beside Margo for me, personally, has just helped me a lot in certain dives. I'm not very strong in my inward takeoffs, and diving beside her has helped me take on some of her technique, and it's really improved that dive individually for me, so it's always a positive.”
“Same for me,” added Erlam. “Like there's a lot of things that we do differently and better. So diving beside her is definitely helpful, and it's helpful to have our coaches kind of interact and make sure we're doing the right things.”