Winnipeg high-divers reach new heights

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This article was published 15/12/2023 (899 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg’s finest young high divers pushed to new heights earlier this month.

Alex Tiaglei, Zita Bernatsky and Carter Baker reached the podium at the first Canamex High Diving Challenge in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and qualified for an upcoming international competition that could take the trio to China or Brazil.

Tiaglei, 18, won a gold medal in the junior men’s division with a score of 346.85 after completing a back-quadruple summersault off the 20-metre platform. It was the first time a junior high-diver completed the dive, one that was hardly familiar to him.

“It was the hardest dive I’ve done so far,” said Tiaglei. “I learned that three-ish days before the competition, and then just being able to nail it in competition led me to the win, which is super exciting.

“I did it a couple of times leading up to the competition… so I was feeling more confident than when I did it for the first time. When I entered the water, I knew I had nailed it. That feeling of knowing you nailed a super high dive and you know that when you come up from the water, that everyone’s going to be cheering, is just unmatched.”

The divers had to plunge from heights of 15m, 18m and 20m into a pool with a depth of more than six metres.

The win caps a banner year for Tiaglei, who also triumphed at the Pan Am junior high-diving championships in Lima, Peru, this summer. With consecutive wins, he’s one of the brightest young high-divers Canada has to offer.

He hasn’t even reached his ceiling, as it were. He’s now working toward a quintuple-flip off a 27m platform. Incredibly, that’s equivalent to the distance from first base to second on a major-league baseball diamond.

Winnipeg’s reign at the cross-continental event continued as Bernatsky struck gold in the junior women’s category after earning 278.30 points.

Bernatsky, 16, splits her training between high diving and Olympic diving. She’s in competition for the latter at this week’s Winter Senior National Diving Championships at Pan Am Pool.

“That was definitely pretty special,” said Bernatsky, who is committed to the University of Iowa for Olympic diving. “Throughout this whole year, I’ve been working toward these two events. The week before the Canamex, I was definitely more focused on those dives, and, obviously, competing up on the higher boards, I’m not able to practice that here at home.

“So, really just working on all the little parts of the dives and being able to get there and put my dives together and perform them the way I did was super special and I’m super proud of myself with how I was able to put together all the parts that I worked on here and really execute them how I wanted to.”

Winnipeg doesn’t have a facility fully equipped to train for high diving. Montreal has the only 15m and 20m indoor platforms in North America. Athletes work on different elements of each dive like a puzzle, developing each piece with the platforms that are available (one-metre, three-metre and 10-metre).

“We’re still doing it the old-fashioned way, where you arrive at the venue and you put those parts together,” said Dallas Ludwick, who heads Revolution Diving, the Winnipeg-based diving institute. “And honestly, they were so prepared. I couldn’t have been more proud, they were so prepared technically but also mentally, to just get up there, put the parts together and do it and, honestly, they laid it down.

“Alex and Zita won, which was a huge statement because for two kids out of Winnipeg to win in the girls and win in the boys was an awesome achievement.”

Baker capped the province’s strong showing with a bronze medal in the junior men’s category, amassing 279.39 points, thanks to his two-flip and three-and-a-half twist dive. Like Tiaglei, it was the first time a junior high-diver had ever completed the dive in a competition.

“I (was) really nervous going into the competition but there’s so much going on with other people competing, watching them, and competing myself, that all sort of blends into one emotion. After I did the dive, it was like a big sigh of relief but I had to stay focused because the competition wasn’t over yet,” said Baker, 18.

“Just because you don’t get first doesn’t mean you didn’t accomplish a lot of things.”

jfreysam@freepress.mb.ca

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