The penultimate day of the Australian Age Championships in Adelaide, delivered more high quality competition as competitors continue to enjoy being back at national level competition.

The Australian Age Championships boasts competitors 10 years old to 50 + years, with a surge in the number of masters competitors in recent years showcasing the longevity within the sport. 

Some 20 years after making her Australian Age Championships debut, Eliza Cole returned in the 35-49 year women’s springboard events. 

The Western Australian successfully took the gold medals in the Women’s 1 and 3 metre events and will return tomorrow for the Platform event. 

“I love Age Nationals, I get really excited every April and it’s cool to come back after the COVID break,” said Cole.

“It’s great to be back in Adelaide, although a different pool to 20 years ago and a lot has changed since then, I’m a lot older… but my diving is better than it was 20 years ago which is good. 

“I feel like there are a few of us who started the ‘Masters movement’ and it’s grown with us which is really cool. There are a few of us who have been there since the beginning, really promoted Masters and tried to get more athletes involved.

“Looking at the 19-24 age group this year, it being so big and so competitive it’s a really good sign of the times and that people are staying involved,” she said.

One such competitor from the 19-24 year old age group was Chris Bednar (New South Wales) who won the 1 metre. Like Cole, Bednar was pleased to see the amount of talent taking part. 

“I’m happy with it, we haven’t been training too much on springboard lately,” said Bednar.

“The dryland facility here [in Adelaide] is amazing, it’s always great to be able to train in a really modern facility.

“It’s good because we are all pushing each other so it kept it a pretty tight event, our scores didn’t spread out too much which has happened in some events. We stayed together nicely and kept pushing each other to better and better dives each round,” he said. 

A busy Australian Diving Age Championships for Bednar, he was also lending his expertise around the pool deck through judging. 

“I like helping out a bit around the pool when I can to make it a bit easier on everyone because I know how hectic it can get. 

“When you judge you also get to see diving from a different point of view… it improves my diving as well because then I know what the judges are looking for and know how to make adjustments to my dives,” he said. 

Across the event there is a buzz around having national events back and representatives from across the country. 

Jesse Carver is the Head Coach of Diving Tasmania and was thrilled to be able to bring a squad of divers from the State - the first since 2015. 

“It’s been just over four years since Diving Tasmania has had a team… we have five girls here,” said Carver. 

“It’s good to be back to see where the talent of each State and each diver is at.

“I think it's fantastic to see Masters are staying involved, if not increasing and we are always looking for Masters in Tassie and hopefully we’ll have some in the future,” he said. 

The final day of the AustralianAge Championships will be held tomorrow starting at 9:00am with the 11/U Girls 3m event. 

All the action from the 2022 Australian Age Championships will again be live streamed via the official Diving Australia Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/DivingAus/, with all results also available at https://www.diverecorder.co.uk/live/index.php.