Irish First as Two Divers to Compete in the Olympics
July 06, 2021
Team Ireland has officially selected two divers who will compete in the Olympic Games in Tokyo this summer
For the first time in history, an Irish female diver will be competing at the Games, following the qualification of Tanya Watson in the Women’s 10m Platform. Ollie Dingley will be competing in his second Games, in the Men’s 3m Springboard event. Irish interest in the diving competition take place in the purpose built Tokyo Aquatics Centre from the 2 – 5 August 2021.
In diving the athletes must complete six dives in a preliminary round, with each dive being scored by seven judges based on the execution. Once all the scores are added together, the top two and bottom two are eliminated, with the remaining three scores added together and multiplied by the degree of difficulty rating of the dive, which gives the total.
Speaking on his selection, Rio Olympian Ollie Dingley said: “Firstly, I’d like to say thank you to everyone who made this possible. It’s a real privilege to represent Ireland at my second Olympic Games
"I feel very lucky that we can get to go and compete at the Olympics after what has been a very uncertain time for everybody. This will be my third competition in over two years, and I really just can’t wait to get out there and compete and do my best.”
Team Ireland Chef de Mission for Tokyo 2020, Tricia Heberle said: “It’s great to see us qualify the two divers, recognising that Tanya has made history, by becoming the first Irish female diver to compete at the Olympic Games, but also pleasingly, she has progressed from our Youth Olympic team of 2018.
"For Ollie this will be his second Games, with his fantastic performance in the finals in Rio being one of the Irish sporting highlights of the Games. We know it has been a challenging qualifying pathway and we are very excited to support them both."
Jon Rudd, Swim Ireland National Performance Director, said: “We’re all thrilled to see this talented team of two selected to compete in diving at the Games, particularly as this is the very first time we’ve ever fielded more than one diver at an Olympics - as well as Tanya having the honour of being our first ever female Olympic diver.
"It’s great to see Oliver at his second Games too, particularly as a finalist in 2016, and we can look forward to some exciting days of competition in the Olympic weeks ahead.”
Team Ireland now consists of 67 officially selected athletes, with over 100 athletes spots confirmed across nineteen sports SEE HERE.
There are six final team announcements to come over the coming week, including our team of swimmers.
TEAM IRELAND DIVING TEAM:
Oliver (Ollie) Dingley – Men’s 3m Springboard
Tanya Watson – Women’s 10m Platform
Tokyo 2020 - Diving Competition Schedule (olympics.com)
