Do you have what it takes to be an Olympic diver?

19 October 2026

Did you know lots of athletes started out in different sports than the ones they earned their medals in?

There are often transferable skills between sports, which is why Great Britain's Olympic Diving team is launching the Diving-Gymnastics Talent Transfer Programme.

They're looking for 12-16 year-olds who are already involved in acrobatic sports like gymnastics, cheerleading and trampolining to try diving, in a hunt for the next generation of Olympians.

Aquatics GB talent transfer coach Georgina Davenport said:

"We just simply ask that if you're curious, and if it's something that interests you, you turn up."

Previous GB athletes who switched sports

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Image caption,
Helen Glover
Two-time Olympic gold medallist Helen Glover didn't start out in rowing. She hadn't even been in a rowing boat until 2008 and went on to win gold at the 2012 London Olympics. Before taking up rowing, she had competed in hockey, tennis and swimming.
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Lizzie Yarnold
Lizzie became the first British athlete to win two gold medals at the Winter Olympics after winning in both 2014 and 2018. She competed in skeleton, a sport where athletes slide head-first down an ice track as quickly as possible. She competed at county-level in the heptathlon but switched to skeleton after being matched with the sport at a Talent ID day.
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Matt Weston
This year, Matt became Great Britain's first male skeleton Olympic champion. Like Lizzie, he found the sport thanks to a Talent ID day. Matt is pretty used to representing his country, though.
As a teenager, he competed for England in taekwondo until he was injured at the age of 17. He also played rugby for his local teams.
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Image caption,
Dame Sarah Storey
Dancing may be an entirely new skill for Dame Sarah on this year's Strictly Come Dancing, but trying new sports is something she's used to. She is ParalympicsGB's most successful Paralympian of all time, with a whopping 30 Paralympic medals, 19 of which are gold.
While the majority of the medals are in cycling, five of the golds came at the start of her career when she was a Paralympic swimmer.

Georgina Davenport added that diving is "a set of super-basic skills that anyone with an acrobatic background would be able to do.

"60% of the diving training that we do is on land, which I think throws everyone off and blows their mind.

"It is the ultimate goal to find the Olympian, but along the way, try a new sport in an environment that is a pretty cool to walk into," she said.

Aquatics GB is inviting anyone age 12-16 with at least three years of experience in an acrobatic sport like gymnastics, cheerleading, trampolining or even freestyle skiing to have a go at platform diving.

The assessment day will take place at Sheffield's Ponds Forge on 8 November.

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Previous GB athletes who switched sports