The next few weeks simply cannot pass quickly enough for Lucy Hawkins because the time will have arrived when all the commitment and hard hours of training will have elapsed and she will be in Birmingham with the Welsh Swimming squad as a 10m platform diver in both the individual and pairs competition.
 
Lucy spent her time in Sheffield successfully studying for her Sport and Exercise Science Degree alongside adding to her diving expertise, and remains there with the British Squad, training for ten rigorous sessions each week in pursuit of her goal – which has now been achieved as she will represent Wales after gaining the vital score of 310 points that qualified her for nomination and then selection for the squad.
 

Thrilled to be selected

 
This was achieved after a recent competition and was reward for ten sessions a week to reach her fitness, strength and diving levels, with half in the pool and on the diving bard, but the other half developing her fitness, strength and mobility so she can, as she puts it, bend, stretch and throw myself about a bit!’
 
There are two other Welsh divers selected; with Ruby Thorne having her roots in Caerphilly but now based in London and Aidan Heslop hailing from The Valleys. Aidan has already had experience of competition in the Commonwealth Games and Ruby will be Lucy’s partner in the paired diving.
 
After receiving confirmation of her selection Lucy the had to attend time at the ICC in Newport to collect her kit, which included her jacket, with Welsh badge on the pocket, my competition parade kit and training kit.
“We had a lovely day and it was great for us all to meet up and have pictures near the giant emblematic Welsh Dragon.”
 

Southampton-based bur proud to be from ‘Herbie’

 
Her family has lived in Southampton for a long time after Reg’s work took him there but she is fiercely proud of the fact that they hail from the village of Herbrandston and she regards herself as Welsh through and through – and that is particularly so because her grandfather, Reg Phillips, was a fine cricketer with Herbie and rightly regarded as one of the best wicket-keepers in the county until work took him down south.
 
Her parents Rachael and Mark are her most ardent supporters and Lucy is also related by marriage to former Hakin United manager Chris Tansey and his wife Helen, whom she last saw recently when she attended a training camp in Newport.

Diving took over from gymnastics and ballet

 
This all seems a long way from the time that Lucy set out on her diving career after previously being involved in ballet and gymnastics, the latter at Waterside Gymnastics Club, where she competed at county and regional levels as an Artistic Gymnast.
 
"Perhaps it was because I had spent plenty of time in the gym on the beam, uneven bars and floor exercises that I was soon in the thick of things - and there is no doubt that ballet helped with my being supple and balanced!"
 
In 2010 Lucy attended a summer holiday diving taster course at Southampton Diving Academy where she was spotted by Head Coach, Lindsey Fraser, who invited her to join the TID (Talented Identified Diver) squad.  
 
"At first we dived off poolside and then progressed to the springboard before eventually moving up through three, five, and seven and a half metres to the top ten-metre board, which was quite scary at first but I soon made progress as I grew in confidence."
 
Lucy went on to compete on 1m, 3m Springboard and the Platform Tower at National Age Groups and Junior Elites, reaching her first British National Cup in 2016.  In January 2018 Lucy became British Women's Junior Platform Champion and it was from here she decided to concentrate as a platform diver.

Hard work has really paid off

 
Lucy would be the first to admit that the coaching she has received has been excellent, since a lot of hard work goes into training, which is not all in the pool.
 
Many hours are also spent on dry land in the gym on cardio, weights, strength and conditioning, which gives the core foundation to learn complex new dives and ultimately to go through the water without any splash!
 
So now when she makes the short journey from Sheffield to Birmingham for the Commonwealth Games, Lucy will be competing in the individual attempt where she must show a variety of dives from the 10-metre platform in the preliminary round and hopefully in the final.
 
But she will also be kept busy because she then joins Ruby in the synchronised pair’s competition.
“It demands a special awareness,” explains Lucy, “but I really enjoy it because you need to work closely together - and we will have a week together for concentrated practice before the event.
 
“It will be lovely that when I am competing I know that my parents and grandfather Reg will be up from Southampton and supporting me poolside on the biggest competitive event of my diving life so far.
 
“It seems so long since Covid brought an abrupt halt to our training and I had to go home to Southampton, where there was no training facilities, but I made sure I kept really fit and now it has all paid off.!”