Four divers will represent the United States at the FINA Diving World Series in Changzhou, China, on March 27-28.

2008 Olympians Kelci Bryant (Chatham, Ill./Indianapolis, Ind.) and Ariel Rittenhouse (Santa Cruz, Calif./Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.) will compete in women

Nine divers have been selected to the 2009 FINA World Championships Team.

The team members were hand-picked following a four-day selection camp held at Ohio State University. Although the camp included a meet format, results from the meet did not guarantee a spot on the team. Synchronized teams will be selected in May.

Six former Olympians were among the divers chosen. Troy Dumais will dive men’s 3-meter. Chris Colwill will join Dumais on 3-meter and will also compete 1-meter. Christina Loukas will dive 1-meter and 3-meter, and Ariel Rittenhouse will join Loukas on women

DiveMeet.com has released some early results from the “meet” associated with the U.S. World Diving Team Selection Camp. As a reminder, I put “meet” in quotes, because the winner of the events does not automatically receive a spot on the World Team. The format is being used to evaluate the divers’ consistency across several lists, performance (of course), as well as degree of difficulty.

There are some ups and downs to this format. As far as our World Team selection is concerned, we are more likely to get the best, most consistent divers to represent our country. On the other hand, this format makes it much more difficult for an up-and-coming athlete to break into the international scene. In swimming, where team selection is made by time, athletes have an opportunity to make the team by having a single great meet or swim. The down side? If athletes are shaved and tapered to qualify for the team, there’s no guarantee they will be in the same shape for the actual championships.

Highlights:
Christina Loukas, from Indiana University, was in the top 3 for all three 1m lists.
David Boudia, from Purdue University, had the high score for all 4 rounds of men’s 3m with 477.95 coming in the 3rd round.
Ariel Rittenhouse (Trojan Dive Club), and Christina Loukas traded off 1st and 2nd place performances in 3 straight rounds of women’s 3m.
Christopher Colwill, from Georgia Diving Club, was clearly dominant on men’s 1m, winning 2 of the 3 rounds and getting 2nd in the other.
Haley Ishimatsu (age 16, from Trojan Dive Club) won both rounds of women’s platform, while Nick McCrory and Thomas Finchum showed great consistency by staying in the top 3 for both platform lists.

>>More articles in Diving.
>>Diving World Team selection procedures.

Source: DiveMeet.com