Local divers prepare for provincials with practice meet

Coralie Cote says when she’s faced with a difficult dive her strategy is to stay positive and to put everything else out of her mind.

The 10-year-old Grade 5 student at École Catholique Franco-Supérieur, Cote started to compete with the Thunder Bay Diving Club two years ago. She and the other club members prepared for next week’s Provincial Championships by having a mock dive meet at the Canadian Games Complex on Saturday.

"If I’m doing a harder dive I’m not thinking about the bad things that could happen I try to keep thinking about the positive things," Coralie said. "The best advice I got from my coach was to forget everything else and to focus on the dive and know what you’re doing."

Coralie has competed in the provincial championships before and placed 14th in her category last year. She said will go the National Championships in July for the one-metre dive but hoped to also compete in the three-metre and tower dives. In order for her to compete in those two categories, she will have to qualify at the Provincial Championships, she said.

Tiffany McLean, acting head coach with the Thunder Bay Diving Club, said the mock meet was introduce newer members to what competitions will be like. Most of the divers that competed were 10 years old and under with the oldest at 13 years old.

McLean said diving has a lot to do with the mind so divers need to be in the right mindset to compete at their full potential.

"Divers need to be confident, and feel great about what they’re doing," McLean said. "They need to be in the right head space to want to do such awesome tricks in front of so many people while the building is silent and everyone is looking at them."

McLean said she felt confident about the team’s chances at the provincial and national championships and with so many of the team competing, it looked good that the overall score could mean they could win the meet.