Synchronised divers make international debut

With a step taken towards a Jamaican Olympic debut in synchronised diving, Olympian Yona Knight-Wisdom is hoping that financial and structural support will be there for fellow diver Yohan Eskrick Parkinson to achieve their goal for Paris 2024.

The duo competed in their first international event last month at the Diving World Cup event in Berlin, finishing sixth in the three-metre synchronised event. The competition was also Eskrick-Parkinson’s launch of his international career, having competed collegiately for Northwestern University. It was also Knight-Wisdom’s first competition of the season, having only returned to training six weeks earlier.

Having flown the Jamaican flag for diving for eight years, Knight-Wisdom said that he enjoyed the experience working with Eskrick-Parkinson although mindful of the adjustments that he has had to make working as a team.

“It’s a different experience because I need to be a bit more mindful of not just my competition process, but also his. And him being in his first year of competing internationally, this is a different ball game. I’ve had to be a bit more aware of that. So that is something that I need to get used to in the synchro events,” Knight-Wisdom told The Gleaner. “I certainly wasn’t ready to compete, but it was a good job for me to get my dives in a certain position so that they were acceptable. It was actually not a bad way to start the season, and it has given me a lot of encouragement for the year ahead.

With the plan to establish more chemistry, Eskrick-Parkinson has joined Knight-Wisdom at his home base in Edinburgh, Scotland, to train together. With an eye towards the World Championships next year as well as preparation for the Olympic qualifiers, Knight-Wisdom is hoping that it will be beneficial in strengthening their partnership

“I think the better we can work together autonomously, it will benefit the synchro because the ideal thing with synchro is that you don’t worry about your synchro partner. You just work on your individual dive. As soon as you say go and start moving at the same time, you can focus on your individual dive and try to do it as best as possible. That’s the idea, so hopefully, we can find ourselves in that situation by the time the qualification period comes around,” Knight-Wisdom noted.

An obstacle in their way is gaining the necessary financial support for the pair to take on the circuit next year in light of the revamped changes for next year’s events on the circuit. Knight-Wisdom hopes that the necessary support will be in place to not only make their target of the World Championships, but the ultimate goal of becoming Jamaica’s first synchronised diving team to compete at the Olympics in two years in Paris. It is something that Knight-Wisdom says that he feels that he has a responsibility to achieve.

“I want to make sure that happens. The fact that my presence for 10 years on the diving circuit has been strong enough and consistent enough to convince someone else who is in a similar position to me to want to represent Jamaica and take that step, take that risk to give a couple of years of their life to commit to making the Olympics, that’s huge. So if I can convince one person to do it, why can’t I convince more?” Knight-Wisdom said.

daniel.wheeler@gleanerjm.com