Edinburgh’s famous leisure and sports venue, the Royal Commonwealth Pool, is making a splash, hosting worldwide elite divers for the Scottish National and Open Diving Championships. Open to the local community to spectate, will the next Tom Daley be in the crowd?
A new partnership between The University of Edinburgh, Aquatics GB, Scottish Swimming and Edinburgh Leisure was announced last month. As a result, renowned diving coach, Adam Smallwood was appointed the role of Aquatics GB performance centre head coach.
Smallwood has worked alongside some of the best talents in British diving, most notably Olympic Bronze Medallist, Lois Toulson and World Championship and Commonwealth Games divers, Jack Laugher and Anthony Harding.
(Adam Smallwood (centre) with Jack Laugher and Dan Goodfellow. Image credit – British Swimming)
This newly-appointed position will see Smallwood managing the Edinburgh Diving Centre, located at the Royal Commonwealth Pool. The centre will be hosting the Scottish National and Open Diving Championship from Friday until Sunday.
Smallwood anticipates the event will stimulate growth for diving in Edinburgh. He said: “It’s an exciting time for Scottish diving now and we’re almost entering like a new era… to help develop the rest of Scotland and to try and bring Scottish diving up to scratch with the rest of the world. We also have an event here this weekend… so that’ll be a fun exciting competition to see where we’re at versus the rest of the world.”
The Scottish National and Open Diving Championships start at ‘The Commie Pool’ on Friday. Smallwood said: “The event which is run here annually, we get all of the best divers from Scotland competing at a national level… Angus Kerr who’s on the three-meter springboard, Libby Duke who’ll be competing on the platform event, she’s recently just come back from Junior Europe and she won a medal… we have some of our younger divers as well competing and testing themselves out against some of the senior athletes, so that’ll be good.”
Having an international competition in Edinburgh could inspire the next generation of Scottish divers, according to the Yorkshireman: “Hopefully we can get a number of new people in, they can watch the sport of diving which is an interesting sport to watch, it’s fun to watch and hopefully they want to give it go themselves…We’re currently taking in a lot of young, new, exciting kids into the programme…The current head of the diving club itself, has been here for longer than anybody else I know. One of her daughters is in the training programme as a coach. It’s a diving family and they’ve been here for a long, long time… it is quite a special place to be and to work.”
Opened in January 1970 for the Commonwealth Games, The Royal Commonwealth Pool has been an Edinburgh staple in the leisure and sport sector. Now over 50 years old, the venue has hosted three Commonwealth Games (1970, 1986 and 2014) and additionally showcases worldwide aquatic championships.
Optimistic Smallwood believes that this is the perfect location for the event: “This is one of the most iconic venues within the UK. I think the city itself is quite a special place.”
(The Royal Commonwealth Pool’s Dive Pool. Image Credit – British Swimming)
The Scottish National and Open Diving event is open to the public, and live results will be available via the DiveRecorder website.
This event will be a perfect opportunity to spectate an excellent display of diving, throwing in twists and turns, and inspiring the younger generation.
