More than 50 of Britain’s best divers are set to take to the boards over the next four days as national champions are crowned at the 2023 British Diving Championships (25th-28th May).
The competition also carries much more than just national pride, with the team for this summer's World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, Japan - when the first Olympic quota spots can be qualified - being selected after performances from the coming days.
The European Games in Krakow are also on the radar for certain athletes looking for international selection ahead of next year’s Olympic Games in Paris.
The Men’s and Women’s 10m Synchro events kick off the action on Thursday night, with a mixture of international and British entries treating the Ponds Forge crowd to another Sheffield spectacle ahead of a busier next three days.
Following the opening night, the Friday sees the springboard athletes in action on what will be the busiest day of the competition. Although not an Olympic event, the Women's 1m Springboard kicks off the action, with City of Leeds’ Katherine Torrance, Dive London’s Grace Reid and City of Sheffield’s Yasmin Harper among the 17 athletes who will be vying for final and podium places.
The Men’s 3m Springboard is the largest event overall, with 32 athletes in the prelims stage. City of Sheffield’s Ross Haslam and Jordan Houlden will be joined in their home pool by Edinburgh Diving's James Heatly and Leeds’ Daniel Goodfellow, with that quartet among the frontrunners for the top spot and a true indication of the strength in depth of this particular event in British Diving - even without Jack Laugher, an Olympic and world medallist in this event, who is not competing as he fully recovers from a slight knee problem.
Following the conclusion of the individual finals, four pairs will then contest the Women’s 3m Synchro final, with a range of talent from across the age groups on show.
Platform competition returns on the Saturday with one of the most eagerly anticipated events, the Women’s 10m Platform, coming after the Men’s 1m Springboard event, which in itself will feature 23 athletes. On the hunt for the medals in that platform event will be Sheffield’s Maisie Bond, Crystal Palace’s Eden Cheng - who took the title last year in a dramatic finish - Leeds’ Lois Toulson, and Dive London’s Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix, Commonwealth and European champion from 2022.
The Men’s 3m Synchro finals will round off the Saturday on the completion of the finals in these individual events, with Haslam and Heatly, who were British National Diving Cup champions in this event, among those taking part.
The final day features the two remaining individual events – opening with Reid, Harper and Torrance joined by Desharne Bent-Ashmeil and her Dive London teammate Scarlett Mew Jensen as part of a big group with an eye on the podium in what will be yet another stacked field to excite the crowd as the competition rounds off.
It is then the Men's 10m Platform contest that continues its place as the traditional curtain call to the competition on the Sunday evening, with last year’s Dive London clean-sweep podium trio of Matty Lee, Noah Williams and Matthew Dixon all back on the top board this time round, alongside 11 other athletes in what will be another high-calibre evening of action to bring the curtain down on the British domestic diving calendar for another season.
Live updates from the event can be found here.
You can keep up with all of the action through our live stream on the British Swimming YouTube channel here.
All start lists and results (when available) can be accessed here.