See future Olympians at the USA Diving Junior National Diving Championships this summer.
Get tickets or register to volunteer at the USA Diving Junior National Championships here.
WHEN TEAM USA DIVES at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris this summer, some of them will have competed previously in Morgantown. Kassidy Cook and Sarah Bacon, for example, won the women’s 3-meter synchronized diving in nationals at the Aquatic Center at Mylan Park here last May.
But while the 2024 Olympics are unfolding in Paris, a major Morgantown event will be
shaping future Olympic divers: USA Diving’s 2024 Junior National Diving Championships. These athletes are young, but they’re already seasoned competitors. “Juniors have to win a regional meet and a zone meet to get to this level,” says Jennifer Lainhart, director of aquatics and track at Mylan Park.
It will be the third event the Aquatic Center has hosted for USA Diving, the official diving
organization for the U.S. Olympic team—and by far the biggest event. The facility previously welcomed more than 100 top divers at the Winter National Championships in December 2022 and about 150 at the National Championships in May 2023. Those competitions opened the door to this much larger event—600 athletes and their families. “We’ve built a reputation with USA Diving,” Lainhart says.
The Aquatic Center has more than just a good reputation going for it. “To host these competitions, you have to have a full Olympic sized diving tower,” Lainhart says. “That includes 1-meter, 3-meter, 5-meter, 7.5-meter, and 10-meter platform diving. Indoor facilities at our level are scarce.” It’s also one of the newest facilities of its kind in the country, since it opened in 2019, just before COVID-19 hit, and not much has been built since.
Morgantown will have a 10-day opportunity this July and August to watch champion divers in the making. Younger athletes will compete in the earlier days, with older kids following later. While diving competitions are always filled with moments of anticipation and awe, watching it unfold in person—feeling that indoor-pool air, hearing the splash, cheering with the crowd for a spectacular twist—can be especially inspiring. In just a few short years, the presence of world-class diving in Morgantown has begun to draw young people into the sport. “We had zero diving teams here before,” says Lainhart. “Now the Hilltop Diving club at the Aquatic Center has 10 or 12 kids on the team, and it’s growing.” Club members experience tower and springboard diving, and WVU divers often help coach. The Aquatic Center also offers diving classes for children and adults.
This year’s Junior National Diving Championships will take place from July 29 to August 7, 2024, with future events already on the books for 2026 and 2028. Watch Mylan Park’s Facebook page for schedule and attendance information.
This is an updated version of the story that appeared in our Summer 2024 issue.
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READ MORE FROM THE SUMMER 2024 ISSUE