February 15, 2019

Rostock, GER - Celina Toth started her 2019 diving season off with a bang winning the Women's 10 metre platform event at the 2019 Rostock Grand Prix in Rostock, Germany today.  This is Toth's first individual international gold medal and is thrilled with the result. 

"It's a great way to start the international season." said Toth, third after the preliminaries and first after the semi-finals. "What was most important for me is that I knew there was an opportunity to win here and I was able to keep my focus throughout the competition.  That's been hard for me to do in the past."

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Toth is working towards qualifying for her first Olympic Games in 2020.

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"I'm still improving." she said. "I didn't change my dive list for this season but I probably made one or two technical adjustments on each dive.  It was great to see that work well.  I plan to keep this list right through to 2020."

November 20, 2018

Boardworks will welcome three-time Olympic medallist Meaghan Benfeito and Olympic medallist Jennifer Abel to Saanich Commonwealth Place December 14 - 16 for the Canadian Winter Senior National Championships. In addition to Benfeito and Abel other Olympic, Commonwealth and Pan Am Championship medallists from across Canada will be in attendance to compete for national titles as well as spots at upcoming Grand Prix and World Cup events in 2019.

Boardworks will be well-represented by current Women’s National 10 metre champion and 2018 Commonwealth Games finalist Celina Toth, Men’s 10 metre Synchro National Champion, 2018 Youth Olympic Games and 2018 Commonwealth Games finalist Bryden Hattie, two-time national medallist Ryan Grover and two-time Canada Games medallist Coral Strugnell.

Events at Saanich Commonwealth Place run as follows:

FRIDAY DECEMBER 14

4:00pm - 5:45pm: Men's 10m Synchro & Women's 10m Syhchro

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15

10:00am - 11:30am: Women's 3m Preliminaries

11:55am - 1:10pm: Men's 10m Preliminaries

2:00pm - 3:00pm; Women's 3m Final

3:35pm - 4:45pm: Men's 10m Final

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16

10:00am - 11:30am: Men's 3m Preliminaries

12:00pm- 1:10pm: Women's 10m Preliminaries

2:00pm - 3:10pm; Men's 3m Final

3:50pm - 4:47pm: Women's 10m Final

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Admission is free.

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Media Inquiries: Please contact Lisa Boog @ (250)888-13349

January 27, 2018

The Victoria native didn’t miss a dive and walked away with the women’s 10m platform gold medal in Saskatoon, adding her name to the list of nominated athletes for the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games.

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It was sweeter for Toth because she missed qualifying for the FINA World Championships last summer.

“Today I'm really proud of what happened,” said the 25 year-old, “In the past couple of events I've been pretty strong but haven't been able to put down a performance nationally that would get me on a solid team.”

Toth scored 366.75 points, well clear of Edmonton diver Elaena Dick’s score of 313.50 points. Calgary’s Caeli McKay was third with 310.35 points.

“I was really happy that everything came together and I could finally show what I've been working on,” said Toth, who is coached in Victoria by Tommy McLeod.

“I came out of the water after my last dive and I looked at Tommy and I was like, 'Finally!',” said Toth. “Finally, I did what I know l can do.”

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January 26, 2018

It was a memorable Friday night for two teenagers.

Bryden Hattie, of Victoria, BC, and hometown sensation Rylan Wiens, from Saskatoon, Sask., lit up the men’s 10-metre synchro final with a winning score of 413.04 points.

It was a national record, eclipsing the previous mark of 408.87 points set by Olympians Philippe Gagné and Vincent Riendeau at 2015 Winter Nationals.

“I think all of Saskatoon came to watch me and Bryden,” said Wiens, 16, who grew up training at the Shaw Centre.

“Going into the last dive I knew we just had to do a decent dive and when we got out of the water and everybody was cheering,” said Wiens, who represents the Sask Diving Club.

“I don't know how to describe it.”

Hattie, who represents Boardworks, was elated and described the competition as mentally challenging, “I was just really nervous because we'd never done a single competition together before,” said the 16 year-old.

He admits the enticement of a Commonwealth Games nomination was on his mind, “I was thinking about that and it was super scary,” said Hattie.

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November 12, 2017

GOLD COAST, Australia – Celina Toth of St. Thomas, Ont., won the silver medal on women’s 10-m tower on Saturday at the eighth and final stop on the FINA Grand Prix circuit in diving.  Pandelela Rinong of Malaysia took the gold with 319.40 points followed by the 25-year-old Canadian with 310.20. AnnaRose Keating of Australia was third at 285.65.
 

"I’m really happy with how things went," said the Victoria-based Toth, a double medallist this past summer at the World University Games. "I knew that I was capable of winning a medal today after my performances in prelims and semis. The main focus was putting down the parts of each dive I had been working on."

Toth’s last dive, a back three and half possibly cost her the gold as she averaged 5.0’s from the judges.

"That is my newest dive," she said. "This week in practice that dive has been much better. I changed my order and decided to finish with it. This decision to change my dive order has been mentally challenging but overall I’m very happy with what I’ve done this week."

On men’s three-metre, Siyi Xie led China to a 1-2 finish with Yuan Cao second and Patrick Hausding of Germany third. Peter Thach Mai of Montreal was fifth. His two twisting dives were the ones that gave him the most difficulty.

October 01, 2017

Victoria, BC -  All three Greater Victoria athletes hit the podium at the Pan American Junior Diving Championships at Saanich Commonwealth Place over the weekend.  Saanich’s Kiera Lu, 11, missed gold by one point on Saturday in the 11-and-under one-metre. She executed an inward 1.5 pike to finish with a silver medal.

Colwood’s Bryden Hattie, 15, took silver on the opening day in the junior men’s category of the three-metre board, and Royal Oak’s own Carson Paul won bronze in the three-metre event for the 12-and-13-year-old category on Saturday.  

“It was Lu’s first time competing internationally and she didn’t miss anything really, she was very confident,” said Lisa Boog, who coaches the trio at Boardworks Diving club.

Hattie (515.85) was less than three points off the gold medal winner who had 518 points.  With silver, Hattie continued his strong season, building on his success at the Canada Summer Games this year where he won three silver medals, to go with a national gold medal in the three-metre and national bronze in the one-metre for the 16-to-18 men’s category.

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Paul was the only diver of the three to compete in two Pan Am events, having entered as the national champion for the platform and the three-metre. He finished seventh on the 10-metre platform on opening day Thursday.

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“[Paul] put a lot of pressure on himself to do well in his home pool, he was nervous,” Boog said. “After the platform he got the nerves out and found his focus [winning bronze] on the springboard.”

The Pan Ams brought 110 athletes to Saanich from seven countries, the fourth and final major diving event hosted by Boardworks at Saanich Commonwealth Place this year.

“For our program, the biggest benefit for us was the exposure our diving program got. We’re always trying to find more young divers, and this shows people that divers from Victoria can compete, can reach an internationally competitive level,” Boog said. “To have this calibre competition in the home pool is extra special, part of the success that they had was being able to compete at home.”

In total, Canada earned four gold medals, seven silver medals and eight bronze medals.

August 04, 2017

Winnipeg, MB - BC brought home a record number of  medals from the pool, with a record 7 medals, all from Boardworks divers. Leading the pack was Bryden Hattie, a 2017 Junior National Champion, who won 3 silver medals in the Men's 1 metre, 3- metre and 3-metre synchro events.

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“I am just surprised, I guess, that I got silver in all my events so far. I was not expecting it at all. But I just did what I knew how to do and it worked out in the end.”
 

Ryan Grover, who is a Junior World Championship team member, teamed up with Hattie in the 3 metre synchro event and also won a bronze medal in the 3 metre individual event.  

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“It feels pretty good. I was a little sad that I didn’t dive at my peak performance. But it was good, it was good.” said Grover.

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Capping off her breakout season, Coral Strugnell is coming home with a silver and a bronze medal in the Women's 1 metre and 3 metre events respectively.  After her bronze medal win she was asked if she had expectations for the final, she said:

“No, I just wanted to have fun and enjoy the competition. Finishing in third place is great." Strugnell completed her dives with a score of 299.10, 10.05 points behind the gold medallist from Ontario and four points behind the silver medallist from Alberta.

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Diving helped Team BC finish second overall in the medal standings, with a record-setting 146 medals overall, finishing behind Team Ontario and ahead of Team Quebec.