Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the 2022 Australian Age Championships returned to South Australia Aquatic and Leisure Centre (SAALC) in Adelaide.

Across the four days, more than 170 divers from right across the country took part with an impressive 2839 dives conducted in front of an enthusiastic diving and local Adelaide community. 

A hallmark event on the Diving Australia national calendar, the Age Championships has grown to feature a wide range of athletes with the 2022 edition featuring the youngest competitor aged 9 years old through to the oldest aged 75 years. 

Diving Australia Board Member, Maggie Roberts, said the event once again was an opportunity to bring together the diving community in the spirit of having a go. 

“The Australian Age Championships is such an important event on the Diving Australia calendar because you bring all the States together to have a collaboration of divers of all age, all skill levels, 1-metre through to 10-metre and synchronized. 

“To really see the young and older kids really giving the sport a go, having an active healthy lifestyle… with the positivity of a supportive network of volunteers, coaches, friends and family in a beautiful atmosphere,” she said.

Roberts said it was thanks to the great volunteer network that the sport was able to see a great cross section of ages and abilities take part. 

“Without the volunteers, our sport wouldn’t exist. It is such an important facet to our sport and some of our volunteers here have been involved in the sport for over 30 years.

“The sport of diving is for everyone, there are people from very young to older age groups, we actually have a few divers in their 70’s which is brilliant. To see that cross-age demographic, getting out there, having a go, being active, and being healthy, I’m thankful we are able to make diving accessible to so many,” she said. 

Diving South Australia’s Operations Manager, Brad Szurgot, said they were pleased to once again have the Australian Age Championships in Adelaide.

“We love hosting the Age Championships, it’s a huge community of divers, the kids come and have a lot of fun and the coaches are all very supportive.

“We have some really great parents in our [South Australia] group that spend a lot of time doing things away from the pool but as well as when we host our events as well as national events they step up and do a lot for us.

“We really feel honoured having this pool here.  The YMCA that manages the facility does a really good job at looking after our needs from the minimal things like keeping our decks clean to maintenance on the board, keeping the dryland condition… we are really lucky,” he said. 

The overall event was a great celebration of participation, with some strong performances from across the age groups. 

NSW’s Sarah-Jane Malcolm finished out her Australian Diving Age Championships with a gold medal in the 14/15 Girls Platform, adding to her gold medal in the 1-metre and silver medal in the 3-metre. 

“It went pretty well [today], came first by 0.7.  My first three dives were pretty consistent but I’m really scared of the 5m platform, and my last two dives were on the 5m so I was a bit nervous. 

“I like the Age Championships to meet other people from different states, it’s fun to have friends from other states,” she said. 

Joshua Lee delivered a trifecta of gold medals for NSW in the 14/15 Boys category, taking all three titles with Kobi White (Queensland) taking home three silver medals. 

White echoed Malcolm’s sentiment of enjoying the opportunity to compete against other competitors from interstate and was very happy to be going home with three silver medals.

“I feel pretty good, I enjoyed it [competing], it was fun. I like meeting new people and competing against harder people. 

“He [Josh Lee] is really good, coming from elite down to age was pretty tough but I think I’ll try to get him again next time,” he said. 

In the Boys 11/U, Queensland’s Austin Hughes also took home the triple crown across the 1-metre, 30-metre and platform, closely followed by New South Wales’ Oliver Radford who secured three silver medals.  NSW’s Ada Savage also was able to take home the triple crown in the 11/U Girls category across the 1-metre and 3-metre and platform. 

The 12/13 Boys division saw Victorians Nicholas Vasta and Dylan Silva go head-to-head, both boys finishing on the podium for each three events.  Vasta took the two national titles in the 3-metre and platform and bronze in the 1-metre, while Silva took gold in the 1-metre with silver in the 3-metre. 

A strong field in the 12/13 Girls kept all divers on the edge with tight, red-hot competition across all three events.  NSW girls lead the gold medal haul with two different national champions crowned; Hannah Moodie (1-metre and 3-metre) and Mea Shires (platform). 

In the 16/18 Boys, it was Queensland’s Zachery Picton who won two gold medals in the 1-metre and 30metre events, as well as taking bronze in the platform.  Victoria’s Matthew Azzopardi took gold in the platform.

Victoria’s Evie English was consistent across the 16/18 Girls age division taking out the 1-metre and picking up a silver medal in the platform. 

Full Results

Video Replay