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XVII Commonwealth Games
By Jim McNally
The XVII Commonwealth Games
Moving The Sport Of Diving Forward
When it became known that the City of Manchester would be hosting the 2002 Commonwealth Games, a shiver of excitement ran through the sport; would the Games be a success? After hosting Grand Prix internationals since 1999, this was moving the hosting of international events up several notches. Would we be up to it, or will we ‘crash & burn’?
The Ticket Fiasco
I was lucky enough to be able to obtain tickets that had been purchased as soon as they were released on sale. My thanks to Tony Hunter for getting them. They were the most expensive seats for each of the four sessions scheduled for Friday & Saturday. At £50 per day, they were not cheap, but this was a moment in British Diving history not to be missed.
The first inkling that all was not well came in a telephone call from Tony, the tickets had arrived, but there was no seating plan with them to indicate where we would be sitting; Tony had eventually managed to get hold of a plan, which showed that, although we had bought the most expensive tickets we appeared to sitting in the worst seats in the pool!
On arrival, we found that everyone who had bought their tickets early was in the same situation – sitting some 80 metres away from the boards, with a head on view! Anyone who is knowledgeable about the sport will realise that head on is possibly the worst angle from which to view a dive. At least there was a big screen for us to see the diving, but I felt detached from the action and cheated, particularly when I spoke to non diving people who had bought their tickets a few weeks earlier and were sitting just above the judges!
It seemed that the allocation of tickets was made on the basis of spectator view of the swimming pool. Certainly my seat was excellent for viewing swimming events and in the absence of other evidence, it appears that the ticket allocations were determined with Swimming in mind. Diving and, indeed, Synchronised Swimming tickets simply had the word ‘Swimming’ deleted from their tickets and their sport inserted. Our friends from Synchro’ were suffering the same fate as Diving.
A number of diving people went to the ASA facility across the road from the pool and complained about the situation. Jeff Cook was good enough to speak to us and told us that the allocation of tickets was not their responsibility; they were only dealing with poolside issues. This was a point, which was accepted, and it would have been wrong to blame the officials who were actually there; but I address the following questions to David Sparkes, who I never saw at all during the diving events:
“As the Governing Body of Swimming, Synchronised Swimming & Diving, surely it was incumbent upon you to ensure that tickets were allocated according to their real value, i.e. the seats with the best view of the event?
“Did you not liase with ticket issuers to inform them of differing factors affecting spectators for the sports, providing them with plans showing seats with good views for each discipline?”
“If not, why not?” As the Governing Body, surely you must have been able to influence this issue – it makes good business sense!
The Events
Ticketing was a fiasco and many people were furious that the ‘foul up’ was so obvious and so easily preventable; however, it was not all bad. The presentation of the events was excellent, the use of music, linked with commentating on the dives while waiting for judges marks to be shown was developed from ideas pioneered by the Great Britain Diving Federation around 10 years ago. I thought it worked really well, although I did speak to some who did not like the choice of music, at times. My congratulations particularly to Julian Bellan for his commentary; a little basic for diving purists, but I believe that it was pitched at the right level. Julian did every session on Friday & Saturday and must have been exhausted at the finish. This job is vitally important to develop atmosphere at competitions and should be an appointment in it’s own right. Too often it is either forgotten, or someone with another job is told to ‘get on the mic’. If we do not present diving competitions properly, no one will come to see them; it’s as simple as that! Remember, it’s the spectators who provide the atmosphere that the competitors feed from.
Friday
There was a real buzz of expectation after the successes of Tony Ally and Jane Smith winning Silver & Bronze, respectively, in the one metre competitions the previous day. The prelims of the men’s three metre saw Tony in fourth place, with Peter Waterfield sixth and Mark Shipman eighth. The final was a real nailbiter, seeing Tony steadily clawing his way back into medal contention. Alexandre Despartie looked a winner throughout, but Tony really nailed his final dives to take a well deserved silver medal. A great result for a great competitor!
The women’s highboard prelims were memorable for the superb back dive piked performed by Stacie Powell, who at the end of the prelims was in third place. Karen Smith was in eighth place, but showed great courage after a poor start to pull back to end the competition in fourth place.
Saturday
The favourite for the women’s 3 metre was Irina Lashko, diving for Australia; as the competition unfolded, this never really seemed to be in doubt, but a real battle was going on for silver between the Canadian, Emilie Heymans and England’s Jane Smith. Jane has been around in diving for some time and is an experienced international; she drew on this experience to put in some memorable dives and eventually beat off other challenges to take the bronze medal. An excellent result, which really set the scene for the final event of the diving, the men’s highboard!
And what a final event it was! The media favourite was Alexandre Despartie, the 17 year old Canadian, who was the reigning Highboard Champion. Looking through the field with other diving people, it was decided that there were five men who could win this event, including Leon Taylor, bronze medallist of four years ago, and Peter Waterfield, both diving for England. Whatever the result, it was going to be a close thing.
In the end, the first five were almost 100 points ahead of the rest of the field – in a class of their own! At the start of the final, hopes were high, as Leon Taylor, who made his name as an international with Ian Barr of Cheltenham, but now dives with Sheffield, was in third place, 8.49 points behind the leader, Despartie. Matt Helm, of Australia was third, while Peter Waterfield was in fifth place.
Peter Waterfield was first of the five, putting in his 626C for 8’s, scoring 75.84. Robert Newberry then nailed a 107B, scoring 76.50. Leon Taylor answered this by putting in his own 107B for 9’s, scoring 80.10! Where do you go from there? Straight to Matthew Helm, the second Australian, who nailed his 107B, scoring five perfect 10’s! 89.10 for one dive!! We might have been forgiven for thinking that this was the climax – it couldn’t get any better! We were wrong…Seven dives in the final scored over 90 points! Peter just got better and better, with his last two dives (207C & 307C) each scoring over 90 points. Leon was consistently awesome, averaging 82.14 per dive and putting in his easiest dive (305C) for 9.5’s! Despartie was always there, even though he dropped his 207C to 5’s in the fourth round, he then scored 9.5’s on his 307C for the highest scoring dive of the event (95.88).
Into the final round – Peter performed an amazing 307C, scoring a perfect 10, with the rest of the judges giving 9’s. His final score – 690.30… And we waited. Robert Newberry’s last dive was 5253B, he needed to score 84.81 to go ahead of Peter; he had already scored 90+ on two dives and this was his most difficult dive, with a degree of difficulty of 3.4. Robert dropped the dive, scoring 7.5’s, finishing the competition with 680.97.
Leon Taylor was next, with his 5255B, a massive 3.8 degree of difficulty, needing to score 85.98 for the gold medal. The dive was good, scoring 7.5’s but the final score was 85.50 – silver medal position, 0.48 points behind Peter, with two more divers to go! Peter & Leon were now assured of a medal, the only question was, which colour?
2,500 people watched and held their breaths as Matthew Helm prepared for his final dive, 5253B, a big dive with a degree of difficulty of 3.4. Mathew had suffered as a result of dropping his 407C to 5.5’s and could not really catch the English divers; nevertheless, he put in a scorching dive, with the judges awarding 9.5’s, ending the competition in 5th place, with a score of 670.53.
The final dive of the competition, Alexandre Despartie, with a 5253B, needing to score 92.85 to win the silver medal. The gold medal was well within his reach and we all held our breath… Alexandre ripped the dive, it was going to be close, very close. The interval between the dive & the judges scores being announced seemed interminable; even Julian Bellan, commentating on the dive, was hesitant. Then the scores, a superb dive had been awarded 9’s by the judges, which meant that the dive had scored 92.82. A massive score – but not enough!! Peter Waterfield was the Commonwealth Champion!!
The whole pool erupted in a melee of cheering, applause and emotion. It was too much for Peter’s Dad, Jim Waterfield, who just lay on the floor, screaming. All around me were diving people, hugging each other & crying. This must have gone on for at least five minutes and I’m not ashamed to say that there were tears in my eyes in that emotionally charged atmosphere.
The 2002 Commonwealth Games was the most successful Games ever for British Diving. Our divers came home with one gold, three silver and two bronze medals, demonstrating a strength in depth that we have never before enjoyed. Our divers now know that they can not only compete with, but beat the best in the world; their confidence is matched by their improving results. The future for British diving is bright – I was privileged to see some leading lights at the Commonwealth Games.