Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, August 19, 2022: The second stage of the Olympic Council of Asia’s diving development camp kicked off on Friday morning at the Pearl Hotel in Kuala Lumpur.
A total of 17 judges from around Asia joined the development school to learn from FINA Technical Diving Committee (TDC) member Maths Lindberg of Sweden, assisted by fellow FINA TDC member Tony Koh of Malaysia.
The course will run for three days and will include a written test of 20 questions on Saturday and two judging tests of the young divers in competition in elements such as approach, take-off, flight and entry into the water.
These competitions will allow the judges, coaches and divers to compare notes, interact and share their experiences and knowledge of what they have learned during the seven-day camp.
“It is an honour for me to be a part of this youth camp, especially with you judges,” Maths said during the opening ceremony.
“It was a pleasure to meet the coaches and small kids who are very talented and who we will see around the world in the future.”
Even though the Swede has a wealth of experience in judging and other aspects of diving, he said he would not describe himself as an expert.
“You always learn new things every day,” he said. “The diving world is changing all the time.”
Lindberg told the judges: “The most important thing is to see dives – see a lot of dives” - as divers train every day and expect the same high levels of consistency from the judges.
“Judge what you see, not what you expect; judge the dive, not the diver,” Lindberg advised the judges.
The opening session included an analysis of the FINA table of Degree of Difficulty, the reasons for scores ranging from 10 for excellent to 0 for a completely failed dive, the FINA diving competitions and age groups.
He also stressed that the dive involves five elements, and that the dive should be judged as a whole dive and not a specific element of the five components.
“I hope you will end up in the chair giving 10s,” he concluded.
His assistant, Tony Koh, explained that the development school was a basic introduction to judging and prepared the participants to sit for a FINA G (elementary) judging certification.
