Melbourn diver pulls up more trees after excellent showing in Sheffield

Diving

MELBOURN-based diver Daniel Goodfellow continues to show his enormous potential after finishing second behind Olympian Tom Daley at the recent Olympic Qualifying Championships in Sheffield.

At just 15 years old, Goodfellow was the youngest and highest ranked challenger to international dive-star Daley in the 10-metre platform event. He and his synchro partner Ross Haslam (Sheffield) took a brilliant silver medal behind Daley, 18, and 31-year-old three-time Olympic veteran, Pete Waterfield, making them the highest-placed juniors in this discipline.

As if that wasn’t enough, the Cambridge Dive Team member also took silver at the 3m synchro event – incredibly with a different partner – Freddie Woodward (City of Sheffield). This time the gold medallists were seniors Nic Robinson-Baker and Chris Mears, so once again Daniel and his partner became the highest-rated juniors in the event. And what’s more, despite the age gap they were only 57 marks behind the winners.

Further proof of his potential was witnessed in the Blue Riband event on the 10m high board. He scored a perfect 10 on his reverse two-and-a-half in the preliminary round while in the final he hit nines and eight-and-a-halves consistently to finish fourth overall – a remarkable achievement for one so young and inexperienced at this level.

The bronze medallist, James Denny, is three years older, while the silver medallist, Waterfield, is 16 years older and winner Daley has a three-year edge and a wealth of top competitive experience.

It is also worth considering the fact that Goodfellow has not yet learned the most complex dives so his Degree of Difficulty (DD – which rates how difficult the dives are) is 16.8 , whereas Daley’s is 20.9 and Waterfield’s added up to 20.4.

His coach, Marc Holdsworth, was delighted at the performance but insists it’s important for his pupil to continue progressing the way he has, and not get carried away. “His DDs are lower however it’s very important that he shows consistency before increasing the complexity of the dives.

“You must remember how young he is. This was his first ever Olympic trial competing at a senior level with a full 10m list so it was a stepping stone for him, but I was impressed with his performance.

“For me it was all about Daniel’s experience. All of this is preparation for the Junior European Championships in mid July in Austria.”