Diving hopeful currently competing in World Junior Championships in Australia

DANIEL GOODFELLOW made his much-anticipated debut at the World Junior Diving Championships in Australia this week.

The 15-year-old Cambridge Dive Team member from Meldreth, currently representing Great Britain at the event in Adelaide, made a blistering start to the week as he stormed in the finals of the three-metre springboard competition. He finished seventh in the preliminaries – an impressive result against the most talented young divers in the world – and was even leading the charts until his final dive knocked him down to seventh, still qualifying comfortably for the finals.

The Melbourn Village College student, who won a bronze medal at the European Junior Championships in Belgrade last year, is one of the youngest divers in Adelaide, competing against many other boys who are two years older.

In the final, however, Goodfellow was in the unenviable position of competing against 11 others, only one of whom had a lower degree of difficulty to him. His five dives were collectively worth 15.1, while the Chinese diver who came second had the highest tariff of 16.4. When you have dives that are not so complex there is no room for the slightest mistake, and he finished in 12th place.

Goodfellow dived well but not up to the standard he had achieved in the preliminary stage. His 5152B scored 67.5 in the prelims but only 63 in the final. His 405B scored 72.00 in the prelims but only 58.80 in the final, 107B scored 69.75 in the prelims but 52.70 in the final, 205B scored 63 in the prelims but only 51 in the final.

Ironically it was the dive he’d not done so well at in the prelims – the 305B – that he improved. It scored only 40.50 in the prelims but 46.50 in the final. Nonetheless this is an amazing effort from a 15-year-old competing against more experienced and older divers.

The winner of the gold medal was Great Britain’s very own Jack Laugher from the Leeds Dive Club.

Goodfellow will now look forward to competing in his favoured 10m platform event on Friday with Team GB team-mate Tom Daley.

His coach Marc Holdsworth has always insisted that Goodfellow’s participation in this competition was always more about him gaining experience in competing at the highest level.

“Believe it or not he was winning the event until his final round dive, but dropped his last dive to leave him seventh in the prelim,” said Holdsworth. “Jack Laugher, Leeds’ Olympian pulled out all the stops to win both the Prelim and Final.

“The final was very difficult with the world’s best making it hard for Daniel who ended 12th in the world. He is ready and will be competing in the 10m platform with teammate Tom Daley in the early hours of Friday morning.”