Young Divers Somersaulting to Success
Sephora Ford in Year 10 and Jessica Vega in Year 11, both elite Divers at City of Sheffield Diving Club, have been selected to represent their club internationally in Holland at the Senet Cup in Eindhoven in February. This is a prestigious diving competition which showcases some of the most promising young divers in the world.
Both Sephora and Jessica were scouted through British Diving’s Talent Identification Programme and have been diving for 7 years and 5 years respectively.
2017 was a great year for both of the girls: Jessica reached the final in the British Junior Elite platform diving competition and won a gold medal at last year’s Senet Cup in Eindhoven. At the Sofia Diving Cup in Bulgaria she won the 1 metre competition and finished second on 3 metres. She ended 2017 with two amazing bronze medals from the English Schools diving competition at the Olympic pool in London.
Sephora also had a particularly successful year last year, winning 11 medals: 7 gold, 3 silver and 1 bronze. She was triple Yorkshire and North Eastern Region champion in the 1 metre and 3 metre springboards and platform, and competed in the girls’ age 14-15 group, even though she was only 13 when she won all but 2 of the medals.
Both are very excited to be competing in the Senet Cup, and hope that this will eventually lead to international selection. ‘This year it’s all about increasing body strength and diving difficulty,’ said Jess. Sephora’s aim is to ‘enjoy diving and progress as far as I can!’
The future looks bright for all our young divers. Lily Godbole in Year 9, who competes at club and regional level, recently had success at the North East Region and Yorkshire Diving Championships. Lily won the bronze medal in the Girls B group 5 metre & 7.5 metre platform competition, increasing her personal best by a massive 27 points.
All three girls are also committed members of Sheffield Girls’ nationally decorated Gymnastics and Trampolining teams and helped the school to numerous regional and national titles in both sports as well as touring Vancouver and British Columbia on the school gym and Trampolining Sports Tour in 2016.
We wish all three girls the best of luck and continued somersaulting success!
We encourage all our students to pursue their interests and passions through extra curricular activities.