Personal story, I got into diving in year 5 when my coach came to the school. She tested all the boys through a series of flexibility and endurance tests. From that, she took through around 40 boys and continued to trial them in and out of the pool. Finally she chose 10 boys that she wished to train further, and I was the lucky last.

During the week I train from 4-6 times a week with training sessions ranging from 2-4 hours. Training is split up into 2 sections; dry-land and in the pool. Dry-land training includes lots of stretching for flexibility and work on our core strength. In the dry-land area we have diving boards onto crash mats, olympic trampolines and even diving boards into foam pits. We work on our flips and twists in the dry-land and put it all to practise when we go into the pool for the remainder of the session.

I was amazed at how well Sheila’s sounds have helped me. By listening to them every morning and the nights before training or a competition my personal best jumped by nearly 40 points from one competition to the next on the 3m springboard (178 – 216 points).

The sounds have also helped me gain a bit of confidence back after having a bad splat on 3 metre at nationals last year.

My goals so far have been representing Victoria twice – in 2015 at Pacific School Games, a multi nation event and in 2016 at Age Nationals.

In 2015 at PSG I earned two silver medals, both for synchronised events and in 2016 I earned one bronze medal which was also part of a synchronised event.

This year I will be representing Victoria again at Nationals in April and hopefully in December as well.

My next challenges will be trying to improve and do even better in 2017 than I have in the past.