Diving tower at Brisbane Aquatic Centre reaches new heights

With funding from the Australian Institute of Sport, Diving Australia’s High Diving expert Joey Zuber has developed a two-metre ‘box’, to take the height of the diving tower at the Brisbane Aquatic Centre from 10 to 12 metres.

The moveable box provides a stepping-stone height specifically aimed at developing new high diving athletes. With no other high diving facilities in Australia, the box can also be used as an entry drill height to help developing and internationally competitive high divers train on home soil.

Advising that the introduction of the new training aid will provide more opportunities for athletes training at the facility, Sleeman Sports Complex General Manager, Alex Hutchison stated “the Brisbane Aquatic Centre is the home to diving in Queensland and we are pleased to have been able to partner with Diving Australia on this new training aid, the first of its type in Australia.

“Australia has a strong pedigree in High Dive, with two athletes currently occupying the top three places in the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series including Queenslander Xantheia Pennisi.

“We are excited to see how innovations such as this will help give greater exposure to the sport and provide the training environment necessary to develop our next generation of stars,” he said.

Diving Australia Pathways Manager Suzie Collins said she’s thrilled to see the project come to fruition, adding “working with Stadiums Queensland, we’re so excited to see all the hard work that has gone into the development of this world leading facility enhancement start to come to life, with the first of these boxes in Brisbane.

“This new High Diving Training Aid supports the delivery of our pathways strategy through the development of the next generation of athletes and coaches, alongside supporting our high diving athletes having the first 12 metre platform in Australia.

“It also means we can host 12-metre High Diving competitions in the near future, which would be a great boost for the sport.

“A special thanks to the Australian Government for the Pathways funding provided by the Australian Institute of Sport which supported this project. We would also like to thank Stadiums Queensland for enabling the new structure to be operated at the Brisbane Aquatic Centre.

“With our learnings from this first phase, we hope to roll out more of these structures at our key national performance centres.”