Local high divers make splash at world championships

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This article was published 15/12/2022 (643 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Three young Winnipeg divers were recently in Montreal, competing in the wWorld Junior Diving Championships as high divers.

Anna Wylie, a 15-year-old student at Linden Christian School, took home the silver medal in the girls 15-16 high diving category.

“Meeting new and different people from around the world was cool,” Wylie said. “I’ve never got to do something like that before.”

Wylie got her start swimming at Pan Am Pool as a youngster. The high diving boards at the end of the pool caught her eye early on in her career.

“I wanted to try that out,” she said. “That got me into diving. I’m obviously not scared of heights.”

Earlier this year, her coach introduced Wylie to high diving. She currently dives from 12 metres, with her sights set on the 15- and 20-metre boards in the future.

“I hope to go to the Olympics for high diving, around 2028,” Wylie said. “Another goal would be to learning higher degree difficulty dives for high diving, to get to a higher level.”

Wylie was joined at the world championship by teammates Adam Cohen and Alex Tiaglei, who finished fifth and seventh in the boys 15-17 high diving (15 metre) category, and coach Dallas Ludwick. Wylie and Tiaglei had each placed third in their respective categories at the Canadian junior national competition in October. The three train with Revolution Diving.

“At nationals, I had a really consistent event, super happy with my result,” said Tiaglei, a 17-year-old Transcona resident who attends Grant Park High School to be closer to Pan Am Pool, where he trains. “At worlds, I was consistent until the last dive, which didn’t work out as I had planned. But it was a huge accomplishment just to be there.”

Tiaglei got into diving five years ago, after competing in gymnastics from an early age.

“I wanted to do something that was acrobatic,” he said. “I like doing the flips and that. The high diving, honestly, I think it makes it even more fun. There’s a more risk involved. The biggest difference is you land feet first, instead of hands first.”

“It was awesome to be representing my country,” Cohen, a 17-year-old Grade 12 student at St. John’s-Ravenscourt and seasoned diver. “I learned a couple hard new dives, and I think I did well. I wasn’t perfect, but given the intensity of the situation and the fact I’d just learned those dives, I think I did well.”

A competitive diver since the third grade, Cohen got his start diving at home as a youngster.

“My parents got a pool when I was really young, and I was always diving into that,” Cohen said. “Diving never really gets boring, there’s always new stuff to learn. There’s always that next dive.”

Like his teammates, Cohen got his first taste of high diving in January, when the program launched.

“High diving, there’s probably more fear,” Cohen said. “It gets me more amped up. I enjoy the feeling of adrenaline. It’s fun to look down to look down at the water and you’re so high up.”

Cohen, who will continue diving at Northwestern University in the fall, said he may pursue more high diving opportunities in the future, should it work out.

“I’ll take that as it comes,” he said. “Because I’ll still be regularly diving, I won’t lose my ability to do high diving”