Top junior divers eye national titles

Meet starts today at Saanich pool

Will they be California dreaming or diving into the City of Lights? Take your pick. They could be doing both in 2024 and 2028 at the Los Angeles and Paris Summer Olympics, with the hosting order to be determined this fall by the IOC.

Canada’s best U-13 divers will compete today through Sunday at Saanich Commonwealth Place in the junior national championships.

“This is the next generation that will be diving for Canada in the 2024 Games and beyond,” said Lisa Boog, general manager and assistant coach of the host Victoria Boardworks Club.

The host club will be well represented with Carson Paul and Keira Lu, both 2016 junior national bronze medallists.

Both have been identified within the Diving Canada high performance program.

“They are up and comers to watch for,” said Boog.

The Boardworks club has produced Olympians Riley McCormick and Jenna Dreyer, Commonwealth Games performers Rachel Kemp and Wegadesk Gorup-Paul and former NCAA Div. 1 divers Liana Bugslag with the Arkansas Razorbacks, McCormick with the Arizona State Sun Devils, Dreyer with the Miami Hurricanes and Aidan Faminoff currently with the Florida State Seminoles.

Now it’s about the next generation of Boardworks divers and it looks to be a good one. Paul and Lu are youngest of that emerging group. Ryan Grover, headed to the Italian Grand Prix, is on the senior national team and Celina Toth will compete in the 2017 World University Games next month in Taiwan.

Bryden Hattie, Coral Strugnell, Tanesha Lucoe and Grover will compete later this month in the 2017 Canada Summer Games in Winnipeg.

“That is half of the B.C. diving team for the Canada Games,” Boog proudly pointed out.

The competition times this weekend at Saanich Commonwealth Place are from 9 a.m. to 5:30 at p.m. today, Saturday and Sunday. This will be followed by the 14-18 age-group national junior meet in two weeks in Montreal.

The top finishers in both the Saanich and Montreal meets will represent the country against the best from the U.S., Caribbean, Central America and South America at the 2017 junior Pan American championships Sept. 28-Oct. 1 at Saanich Commonwealth Place.