Original Story - The West Australian

WA divers to make waves

Bridget Lacy - The West Australian on May 26, 2016, 12:01 am

The work new WAIS diving coach Mathew Helm has been doing over the past five months will be put to the test today when the Australian Open Diving Championships begin.

Helm — a three-times Olympian and four-times medallist — has taken on the program in 2016, making the move from the Queensland Academy of Sport after he was headhunted for the WAIS job.

WA’s Teju Williamson, Tamara Irvine and Nikita Hains are in Melbourne for the championships, which double as the Rio de Janeiro Olympic qualifiers.

Helm said the trio had been training hard ahead of the competition.

“It’s good to have all the really big dives that they’ve got, but I want to make sure they’re technically sound and make them look like beautiful divers so when it comes to the national and international stage, they are very competitive,” he said.

“(This week) my expectations are to continue to show the good work they’ve been doing in the training sessions to take that into the competition environment.

“I think when you break each dive down into the different components, all of them have made some really good positive changes with that.

“You can tell with the overall quality that the consistency is getting much better now. They are now much more confident and are a little bit more relaxed.”

WA’s Maddison Keeney, who is based in Brisbane, is expected to seal her place in Rio at the championships.

Helm believes Keeney has what it takes to win multiple gold medals on the international stage and said there was no reason why she couldn’t get on the podium in Rio.

“It’s got to start somewhere, doesn’t it,” he said.

“She is certainly talented and she has been very successful in the past. It’s a matter of whether she can step up when it counts.”

Helm said Williamson, Irvine and Hains were working towards next year’s Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast and the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

“There is still quite a long way to go in terms of their technical development,” he said.

Melissa Wu and Brittany Broben are expected to lead the Australian medal charge in Rio following the retirement of gold medallist Matthew Mitcham earlier this year.

The 10m platform specialists, who each have an Olympic silver medal, must finish in the top two at the trials to secure their Games berth.

There are 10 Olympic spots up for grabs.

From all of us at Diving WA we wish Maddison, Teju, Tamara, Nikita and Mat the best of luck at the 2016 Australian Open Diving Championships.