DIVING CHAMPION HAS HIGH IDEALS

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31007, 12 March 1966, Page 11

DIVING CHAMPION HAS HIGH IDEALS

r JITTER trudging through “ 1 the desert of defeat for six years, the Waikato diver, Robin Hood, found an oasis at last when he won the national men’s springboard title at Napier last month.

But. having reached his goal, he does not intend to rest, even though he would he entitled to some respite from the bruises and aching muscles that lie behind the success of every champion diver.

But Hood takes his newlywon status seriously. As befitting the most senior of the national swimming and diving champions—and the only titleholder with a wife and family—he feels that it is his responsibility to raise the standard in his particular field. As the country’s new No. 1 male diver, he sees a challenge which must he met: the task of perfecting harder dives to raise the ceiling on New Zealand diving.

To this end his immediate plans are to train throughout the winter on the two duraflex boards at the Mormon pool in Hamilton. He

will continue with the reverse and back one-and-a-half somersaults but also will work on the challenging three-and-a-half somersaults and another twist dive.

This has been the brightest season of Hood’s career —he has won the New South

Wales and New Zealand springboard titles and is in the running for nomination for the Empire Games team. He feels his success stems from a break from competi-

tion last season. After the lay-off he returned to the fray refreshed. Hood has never regretted the shift he made from Wanganui to Hamilton seven years ago. Since that time he has trained under Mr M. Campbell, who he regards as one of the two best diving coaches in the country.

The Christchurch diver, R. L. Hodge, has been Hood’s bogeyman throughout his senior career. From 1959 to 1964 Hood was second on four occasions and third twice in the national title contest—and each time Hodge was ahead of him.

This year Hood felt confident he could have beaten his old adversary. He was genuinely sorry to learn that Hodge was not diving this season—not for the reason of attempting to gain a long-awaited revenge, but because the presence of Hodge would have boosted the standard of competition. As it was, Hood’s winning aggregate of 150.74 points was the highest score achieved for 12 years.