Adam to usher in a new diving era at the Commie

December 5, 2024 7:29 am

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Diving in Edinburgh is on the up with the addition of Adam Smallwood as Aquatics GB Performance Centre lead coach.

In the new role Yorkshireman Smallwood will develop the Royal Commonwealth Pool as a GB High-Performance Centre, with the aim of producing world-class talent from a growing diving programme.

Adam brings a wealth of experience having nurtured and coached some of Great Britain’s top diving talent in Jack Laugher, Anthony Harding and Lois Toulson, all of whom returned from Paris 2024 with Olympic medals.

The appointment is a key part of the project to create a centre of excellence for diving at the Royal Commonwealth Pool.

Adam said his plan is “simply to turn Edinburgh Diving Club into one of the top three in the country and cement its Performance Centre status within the next two Olympic cycles. The plan for Scotland is to develop other centres outside of Edinburgh to grow the talent pool across the country.

“I believe that the current set up in Edinburgh is a great foundation to build a sustainable and high achieving training centre. The current coaching team has really good depth and is capable of delivering high standards at all levels.

“The Royal Commonwealth Pool itself is such an iconic venue and one which allows top end athletes to thrive but at the same time has the space and capacity to give plenty of children the opportunity to try the sport in the lessons programme.

“It is a totally different type of challenge to the one I have had in the last two Olympic cycles. I have gone from working with just a small group of select athletes that spent the last eight years on the international circuit competing at the highest level to now working with a much larger team of people, not just athletes but coaches and people within the connecting partnerships. So, the scale of this new challenge seems much bigger. However, that is what excites me about the upcoming years – I‘m looking forward to all the possibilities and opportunities that lie ahead for everyone involved in Edinburgh diving and other centres across Scotland.”

A newly introduced trainee programme for diving coaches has been introduced over the past six months. Edinburgh Leisure’s Dive Specialist Vicki Tomlinson, who recently judged at Paris 2024, has trained and developed four new coaches who have now successfully completed their coaching and NPLQ lifeguard qualifications, and have joined the coaching team at the RCP.

Vicki has now started work on a project with Scottish Swimming to redesign the national dive coaching framework and to create a new course which will support the training of Dive Trainees of the future. The new course will be piloted in 2025 at the RCP.