Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, August 21, 2022: The Olympic Council of Asia’s diving development camp for athletes, coaches and judges came to a conclusion on Sunday morning at the National Aquatic Centre in Kuala Lumpur.
The seven-day camp focused on the athletes and coaches for the first four days and added the judges to the mix for the final three days to promote mutual understanding between coaches and judges during competition.
“The OCA firmly believes that everyone has truly benefited from this camp – the young athletes, their coaches and also the judges,” said Tony Tarraf, Head of Athletes’ Development Department and Special Projects for the OCA.
“We have been well supported by our National Olympic Committees around Asia, with 28 athletes, 15 coaches and 18 judges from a total of 16 NOCs attending the camp.
“We believe this is an important step in the development of diving in Asia and we are excited about the future of the sport when the athletes, coaches and judges return to their own countries and build on the strong foundations and the information they have gathered here.”
Tony said the camp could not have been held without the support and cooperation of the International Olympic Committee’s Olympic Solidarity, world governing body FINA, the Malaysia Swimming Federation and the Olympic Council of Malaysia.
“This has been a great team effort to put this camp together because there have been so many different elements,” he added.
“As well as the dryland training and pool work for the athletes, we also incorporated topics such as anti-doping, Olympic values and education and sports science as they will all contribute to the overall development of the young athletes.”
Tony also thanked the two main instructors – diving coach Shannon Roy of Australia and head of judging Maths Lindberg of Sweden – for presenting varied and informative content to the parties concerned.
“The athletes, coaches and judges have learned a lot during the past seven days and, above all, they have had fun and made new friends with people from different countries. This also adds value to the OCA development camp.”
The final morning began with more judging of specific elements of the dive and ended with the athletes being judged on one whole dive for which the judges could score as if in international competition.
The judges, coaches and athletes all received participation certificates pool side.
The top three girls and boys from the competition were announced as follows:
Girls: 1, Lee Yiat Qing (Malaysia), 2, Viktoriya Kossenko (Kazakhstan); 3, Lilli Prateep (Thailand).
Boys: 1, Nurqayyum Nazmi Mohamad Nazim (Malaysia); 2, Vajerhelabad Sam (Iran); 3, Elvis Priestly Clement (Malaysia).
Most Improved Athletes:
Girls: Kim Bomin (Korea)
Boys (tie): Saad Salah Al Hamad (Qatar) and Waleed Alhomrani (Saudi Arabia)
