WORLD CUP PREVIEW FEB 19 2008

Plymouth’s elite divers Thomas Daley, Sarah Barrow, Brooke and Brooke Graddon face the toughest diving event in history when they take on over 50 countries and 300 competitors for just 136 Olympic places at the World Cup held in Beijing’s famous “Water Cube”.

Unfortunately, team-mate Tonia Couch will not be competing.  She was sent to Beijing as a reserve with Stacie Powell from Southampton unsure of competing due to illness, however as the team left their holding camp for Beijing, Stacie was declared fit and denied Tonia her opportunity to compete.

It’s the biggest diving event ever staged and for most of the divers, it won’t be performing their skills that will provide them with the biggest challenge, how they handle the time in between each of their dives (which could be as much as 45 minutes) that will make the difference between success and failure.  With the girls performing 5 dives and the boys performing 6 dives, the preliminary rounds are expected to take around 3 hours, although in the Mens’ 3m event, that could be as long as 5 hours, with 61 competitors appearing on the start list!!

It is an astonishing programme and ultimately means that this year’s World Cup will be more difficult and challenging than the Olympic Games.  Success here will be 90% mental/emotional and only 10% physical.

The divers’ physical preparation could not have been better.  The camp in Xian City went extremely well and the divers are in top form.  It just remains to be seen whether they can deal with the bizarre conditions thrown at them – are they mentally tough enough?  Only time (literally), will tell!

Events start on Tuesday 19^th February and continue until 24^th Feb.