Rylan Wiens sets new national record on final day of 2022 Winter Senior National Diving Championships
Rylan Wiens of Pike Lake, SK broke a 15-year-old record on Sunday night at the 2022 Winter Senior National Diving Championships taking place at the Shaw Centre in Saskatoon, SK when he won the men’s 10-metre platform competition with a score of 545.95 – shattering the former mark of 535.50 set by Alexandre Despatie in 2007.
Margo Erlam of Saskatoon, SK dominated the women’s 3-metre springboard final to take her second gold of the weekend.
Wiens, who trains out of the Shaw Centre pool, dominated the men’s 10m competition, laying down six stellar dives, including a brand new back two and a half twist dive, to win gold and set a new national standard.
“This is definitely a big confidence booster,” said Wiens who last competed at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo this past summer where he finished 19th overall. “I’ve been putting in a lot of hard work in the off season and (it was nice) to feel it kind of finally pay off a little bit. I have a new dive on my list, and so I’m just working on consistency and how good I can do my dives. The satisfaction of it starting to pay off is really cool.”
Wiens defeated his Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games teammate Nathan Zsombor-Murray of Pointe-Claire, QC who captured the silver medal with a total score of 511.20, while up-and-coming junior athlete Benjamin Tessier won his first senior national medal, capturing bronze with a total score of 448.50.
19-year-old Erlam had an absolutely dominating final day of competition on 3m, laying down five superb dives to score a total of 377.65 to add another gold to the one she won on Friday on 1m.
“I’m very excited. But also, there’s a lot more work to do. There was a lot of work to do up until this point as well, but I know that I need to be a little more consistent and just more confident in myself,” said Erlam who said she was fighting her nerves before the competition. “I really tried to channel my nerves and make sure I wasn’t too panicked about it. But yeah, everybody commented on how composed I looked. But on the inside, I was freaking out. But I was also trying to just stay chill. It’s just about focusing on tiny little things and putting them all down.”
Two-time Olympian and long-time senior national team member Pamela Ware of Montreal, QC scored 326.25 to take her second silver medal of the weekend; she also captured silver on 1m on Friday. Newly minted NCAA champion on 1m, Mia Vallée of Kirkland, QC, took the bronze with a total score of 323.40.
Next up for these athletes are the 2022 Summer Senior National Diving Championships, set to take place in Victoria, BC from May 27-29. That competition will serve as the final selection trials for the 2022 Commonwealth Games being held in Birmingham, UK at the end of July, and for the 2022 World Championships being held in Budapest, HUN at the end of June.
Results: https://diving.ca/winter-nationals-2022/