While the national diving trials at Saanich Commonwealth Pool are about finalizing the Canadian team for this summer’s Toronto Pan Am Games and FINA world aquatics championships in Russia, there are those laying out calling cards for the future.
Among them was Ryan Grover from the host Victoria Boardworks Club, who scored a silver medal in the senior men’s one-metre on the opening day Friday. The Claremont Secondary student recorded 340.60 points on his six dives in the final as gold-medallist Marc Sabourin-Germain topped the table at 350.60 and fellow Quebec diver Peter Thach Mai took bronze with 330.50.
Grover doesn’t have enough season points to crack the national team this summer, but watch out down the road.
“This is awesome. Ryan is very [physically] strong . . . we just need to teach him more technique,” said Boardworks coach Tommy McLeod.
The Grover story has come sort of full circle. The native of Toronto — whose parents, Scott and Christie, were skaters in Disney on Ice — annually visited his maternal grandparents in Victoria. During one of those visits, they entered him into a Boardworks summer camp for kids. Grover fell in love with diving and joined clubs in Ontario. Two years ago, he came out west again when his pool back home was undergoing a refit. He liked the coaching and support at Boardworks and decided to remain.
Back home in Ontario, Grover’s parents hooked up the Internet to the TV to watch Ryan’s performance on Friday.
“It’s an awesome opportunity for Ryan to stay with family [grandparents] while he trains in Victoria,” said dad Scott Grover, a power-skating coach in Barrie, Ont., whose clients have included NHLers and NCAA and OHL players.
Meanwhile, Caeli McKay of Calgary won the women’s three-metre event Friday with a score of 297.00. But it’s tempered with the knowledge that the so-called Fab Four from Quebec — Roselin Filion, Jennifer Abel, Meaghan Benfeito and Pamela Ware — have already qualified for the 2015 Pan Am Games and 2015 FINA worlds and so are exempted from competing at nationals. The four will be medal threats this summer in Toronto and Russia and next year for the 2016 Rio Olympics. They backed that up with Filion winning platform gold at the World Series meet last week in London, followed by Benfeito’s gold on the platform the week before at the World Series meet in Moscow. Abel and Ware have won medals at the last three World Series events.
“Our women’s program is scoring internationally . . . the potential is very high,” said Mitch Geller, chief technical officer for Diving Canada and the man who founded Boardworks.
Host Boardworks is represented at nationals by two-time Olympian Riley McCormick (men’s three metre), Celina Toth (women’s 10-metre platform), Aidan Faminoff (men’s three metre and platform), Grover (one- and three-metre), Coral Stugnell (women’s one metre) and Bryden Hattie (men’s one metre).
The national trials continue today from 10 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free.
