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Diving 2002 - Moving Forward?
There is a lot to be positive about at the moment in our sport, and hopefully by the time you read this we will have something else to cheer with some medals from the Commonwealth Games. The approach of the new coaches at the elite level, and the development of the world class programmes promises much for the future. So is this the bright new world for British Diving as it seems to be at first glance? I’m afraid that a personal opinion is that, no it isn’t, it’s a major step but there are major issues that are just being ignored. I hope to demonstrate this, and also what we need to do to address the major problems. In this, the first of a series of personal views as to some of the problems we face, I’m going to look at one area in particular, and hope to generate some discussion about this particular topic, access to FACILITIES.
We all know the situation with regard the supply of highboard facilities in England, with three in the south, one in the midlands and four in the north of the country, and the issue in London specifically of having only Crystal Palace, a single, crumbling, facility to serve some 10 million population. This facility, despite all its many failings, has Listed Building status, which means it cannot be brought up the required standard for a modern facility.
But this pales into insignificance beside the real facilities problem, and that is the depriving of the public of the opportunity to try diving. We have seen pools closed across the country over the past 20 years with very few being built, and in the same period a number of pools have lost their diving facilities altogether, and many of the rest have them reserved now for club use only. But why is this such an issue?
Not only is it unfair, as, after all, the public actually pay for the facilities to be built and operated, but not only that, the restriction in the use of facilities has a number of other effects. Firstly, it means that a child (or adult) who thinks they may like diving has to find a club and make a commitment to actually start in a formal setting. Secondly, even if the facilities are open, most of them impose major restrictions on what users can try, no going backwards, no sommersaults etc, etc. This reinforces the message to parents, children and pool staff that DIVING IS DANGEROUS.
Here’s example of this in the East London area. When I was in my teens and looking to learn to dive, I was able from where I lived to go to 7 pools within a bike ride, two of them outdoor ‘Lidos’. All of them had diving facilities and all of them where open to the public. The ‘boards were always fairly full of children and adults, diving, jumping, with no restriction on back take-off’s or sommersaults, but the use was controlled by pool staff and safety enforced. The local clubs also used parts of these public sessions for training, and many new divers came to clubs this way, being identified as potential talent at public sessions. In addition, Crystal Palace was also available at specific times for public use. Now in the same London area, the Lido’s are gone, and only three of the pools now open their boards at all to the public, only one for more than a very limited time and which allows more than a forward dive to be done. We have lost about 60% of the facilities totally, but nearly 90% of time available to the public.
We need to reverse this trend and to fight the current ill informed attitude to diving, which is unbelievably listed as a major spinal injuries sport, alongside Rugby, Parachuting, Rock Climbing and Horse Riding! We need to educate pool management and staff in the safe running of Public Diving Sessions, and differentiate between ‘Hurt’ and ‘Injury’ when discussing diving. I despair when I see children being told, “you can’t jump backwards it’s too dangerous”. If they do join a club, how will they react to back or inward dives, when for years the staff at the local pool has been telling them how dangerous it is. It’s noticeable how the level of applicant to a diving club has changed, with most now lacking the confidence to try things that a few years previously would have been normal to many children.
We know diving is a great sport, but we need large numbers of children to at least try it, and we can’t accommodate these numbers in club sessions, it needs to be much more informal.
Out there, somewhere in the UK, is a child with the talent to be a World and Olympic champion, but they will probably never know what diving is or think of joining a club, unless we have the FACILITIES open for them to try it for themselves in their own time.
John Whitby