USA Diving is making some noticeable marketing changes to help promote the sport of diving in the Web 2.0 era. A few things you’ll notice include: 1.) The USA Diving page on Facebook, 2.) The USA Diving YouTube channel, and 3.) Kristian Ipsen winning Senior Nationals.

Ok well, Kristian’s success at the 2009 Speedo USA Diving Spring Nationals wasn’t exactly a marketing plot – but the continued immersion of young talent in diving is a good sign that the American team is rebuilding itself to keep up with now dominant China.

Kristian, at the age of 16 (FINA age 17), won the 3m springboard and 3m synchro (w/ Troy Dumais) springboard events at the 2009 Nationals at the end of April. These are his first national titles, and confirm the progress he’s made since seen here appearing in the 2008 Olympic Trials Selection at the age of 15.

Here is a rather windy interview with Kristian at Nationals:

The USA Diving YouTube Channel has a few extremely HD videos up from the AT&T; USA Diving Grand Prix meet, but is still lacking a little in overall content. They’re definitely on the right track to building what could be a huge database of high-def diving footage.

The 2009 USA Diving Spring National Championships, sponsored by Speedo, begin today in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. I found this thumbnail picture of the Hall of Fame pool on Flickr. It’s a nice change from the traditional picture (open in new window) that is used over and over and over…

You can obviously read more about the event on USADiving.org, but if you want to join the 21st century, you can also become a fan of USA Diving on Facebook and RSVP to the event. Sara Hildebrand, Drew Livingston, Hayden Jones, and Christina Loukas are already listed as attending.

Who else can you expect to see at the meet? The Facebook event name-drops a list of athletes who will be competing:

2009 World Championship team members Brittany Viola (Orlando, Fla.) of the University of Miami, Nick McCrory (Chapel Hill, N.C.), Allison Brennan (Huntington Beach, Calif.), and Kristian Ipsen (Clayton, Calif.). Divers defending their 2008 Spring Nationals 1-meter titles, Victoria Ishimatsu (Seal Beach, Calif.) and Ryan Helms (Moultrie, Ga.) are also scheduled to attend.

Meet results will be posted on DiveMeets.com, and you can check the full list of entries here.