Jack Laugher and new Sheffield team-mates make up half of Aquatics GB squad for world championships
Of the 14 divers selected to represent Great Britain at the summer’s Aquatics World Championships in Singapore, half of them are trained here in Yorkshire but not at the pool that for more than a decade has been a seat of power in the sport.
For 15 years, Olympic champion Jack Laugher had City of Leeds written next to his name. Now it says Sheffield Performance Centre, as it does alongside those of Anthony Harding and Lois Toulson.
After Adam Smallwood, their coach at the John Charles Aquatics Centre in Leeds, moved up to a similar role in Edinburgh, Laugher, Toulson and Harding migrated down the M1 to Ponds Forge.
There they are now coached by Tom Owens, who enjoyed success last summer when his star pupil in Sheffield, Yasmin Harper, won an Olympic bronze medal in the 3m synchro in Paris.
Harper is headed to Singapore this summer, as is her City of Sheffield clubmate Jordan Houlden – an Olympian last summer – and two rising stars, hometown prospect Maisie Bond and Tilly Brown, who has relocated to the Steel City from down south.
Laugher, 30, who still does some of his training at the John Charles, is heading to his eighth successive world championships in search of a ninth medal and an elusive first gold.
Aquatics GB programme lead Matt Ashman said: “A post-Olympic year has its challenges as well as opportunities, and as a leadership team we’ve been impressed with the way athletes returning to competition after Paris have navigated this period.”
Bond won her first British title from the 10m platform at Sandwell Aquatics Centre in West Bromwich last weekend.
“It was really important to me to show my ability and my improvement over the last few months,” said teenager Bond. “The national title means a lot.”