New heights

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This article was published 29/05/2019 (2598 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Adam Cohen can leap into the water from the height of a three-storey building, yet walking on the frozen stuff came with a high degree of difficulty for the young Winnipegger earlier this year.

The competitive diver lost his footing on a slippery school parking lot in January, broke his left arm in two places and had to wear a cast, forcing him out of water for eight weeks, a crucial chunk of his training schedule.

The inevitable teasing, he says, was warranted — and he can smile about it now.

“Yeah, everybody thought it was related to diving, but it was just me walking in a parking lot,” Adam, 14, said Wednesday afternoon, just before practice at Pan Am Pool.

“I just slipped and fell (during recess).”

But the injury was no laughing matter just a few weeks after the holiday season. 

“I didn’t know how long I was going to be out… I really wanted to dive. It was really disappointing because a competition was just coming up. I was super upset,” he said.

The Grade 8 student at St. John’s-Ravenscourt School resumed his regular routine in early March, competed in Victoria, B.C., later that month and is now geared to make the first plunge off the 10-metre platform of his competitive career this weekend at the 2019 Manitoba provincial championships.

The three-day meet, expected to attract about 40 athletes who hail from the host province and 90 more from Western Canada and Ontario, begins Friday morning at Pan Am.

Cohen, a serious threat to medal despite the long interruption to his training regimen, is grateful to be healed up in time for the big meet in familiar surroundings. He’ll compete in the one-metre, three-metre and 10-metre events.

“It’ll be super exciting. It’s going to be really fun,” he said. “I love diving, and after not being able to do it for a while, it will be nice to get up there and actually compete.”

Out of the pool for nearly two months, Cohen worked out in the gym to maintain his fitness level and had plenty of dry-land training, using a trampoline or a “dry” board and landing on his feet on mats.

“I spent most of the time working on stuff for my legs and doing lots of (abdominal) exercises. While I couldn’t actually be doing dives in the water, I could still be building my strength,” he said.

Provincial head coach Dallas Ludwick said she was thoroughly impressed by the teen’s focus and resolve during some trying times.

“He was devastated in that situation, just like any athlete would be. But he just took it as an opportunity to stay in the moment, take it as it is and work on the things he could control. He showed a lot of maturity, he didn’t get too frustrated and, honestly, it was quite impressive,” she said.

Finally, Cohen vacated the sideline and returned to the springboard in time for a meet on Vancouver Island. 

“He did his first competition in Victoria, even though he’d only been in the water for two weeks. He did the one-metre, which, if you ask him, is his least-favourite event. But he had such a great attitude and ended up winning a (bronze) medal (in boys B 14-15 division),” Ludwick said. “He even did two dives he’s never used in competition before.

“It’s been a really interesting process to see such a young person handle all this so maturely.” 

Cohen only began practising dives from the 10-metre platform last year, and he actually had to leave town to find a pool that offered the highest rung. The Pan Am Pool was shut down for major renovations July 30 to Oct. 4, so divers trained at Cindy Klassen Recreation Complex instead.

But the Sargent Avenue facility only has a five-metre platform. 

“We did a couple of weekend jaunts out to Regina and did a training camp in Montreal so he could get started doing his first few dives on 10-metre, and then in January, he got hurt,” Ludwick said. 

“So, this is his first time competing, and he’s got four dives up there.”  

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPJasonBell