Calgary’s Hailey Casper wins women’s 1 m at junior nationals

July 12th, 2009

Hailey Casper

VICTORIA – Hailey Casper of Calgary upset the Ware sisters and posted a personal best score en route to the gold medal on women’s one-metre springboard on Sunday to the conclude the 2009 Speedo Junior National Diving Championships.

Casper survived some subpar scores on her final dive to win the gold with 470.45 points. Pamela Ware of Montreal took the silver at 463.40 and Carol-Ann Ware of Montreal was third at 462.00. Earlier this week, Pamela Ware took gold on three-metre and Carol-Ann Ware did the same on tower.

“It was a good strong performance,” said Casper, who assured herself a berth on the Canadian team for the Junior Pan Am Championships in Calgary this September. “It was a tight competition and I needed to dive well. It’s pretty exciting to know I’m going to compete internationally in my hometown.”

In the boys 14-15 age group tower, Dylan Grisell of Etobicoke, Ont., produced an outstanding performance taking the gold with 416.85 points. He beat his personal best by 35 points and earned two perfect 10’s for his frontward compulsory dive.

“My optionals and compulsory dives were very strong,” said Grisell, 14, a former gymnast, only in his third year of diving. ‘’My frontward dive is one that I’m comfortable with but it doesn’t happen often to get a perfect score.’’

Grisell dedicated his victory to his Etobicoke Diving Club clubmate Isabel Warren who died tragically last month at age 14.

Other girls winners were Frédérique Lalonde of Montreal on 12-13 one-metre and Eloise Bélanger of Montreal in 14-15 three-metre.

‘’It went super well,’’ said Bélanger. ‘’I was consistent from start to finish. The key for me is doing that first dive well. Then I have a lot of confidence.’’

Other winners for the boys were Vincent Riendeau of Montreal in 12-13 three-metre and Aidan Faminoff of Victoria in the 11 and under platform.

The outstanding divers of the meet were announced: in the 16-18 category they were Shane Miszkiel of Victoria for the men and Carol-Ann Ware for the women; for the 14-15 age group Nicholas Beaupré and Myriam Selmani, both of Montreal; in the 12-13 category, Riendeau and Lalonde and in the 11 and under category Faminoff and Dominique Cadieux of Edmonton.

Full results at http://www.integratedsports.net/diving/live/schedule.aspx

About Diving Plongeon Canada
Diving Plongeon Canada (DPC) was established in 1967 as a not-for-profit organization to promote the growth and awareness of the sport in this country. As a member of FINA, the world’s governing body of aquatic sports, DPC contributes to the development of globally accepted standards of excellence in diving and supports the rules and regulations of international competition. Representing nine provincial diving associations, 67 local diving clubs and close to 4,000 high performance athletes, DPC shares a national commitment to advance the art and sport of diving and to position Canada as the number one diving nation of the world.  For information, visit www.diving.ca.

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