European Diving Championships
The European Diving, Synchronised Swimming and Water Polo Championships will be held this month in the Dutch city of Eindhoven. The most important of these is the European Diving Championships, which will be held from May 15-20. This is a very exciting event that will have the water sports community in Europe tightly focused on the results. This is the last major event on the European schedule before the Olympics in London later this summer.
That means that the European Diving Championships are the last opportunity for divers to fine tune their competition routines before the Olympics. There is no way to simulate the stress of a major competition in practice. Divers will use the European Diving Championships to figure out what dives are going to work the best for them during the tense drama of a major competition. They can keep what works and discard the dives that are too difficult to rely on during the London games.
Many teams will be looking to score success in Eindhoven. The list starts with the home team, the Netherlands. The Dutch team is a bit of an underdog on the European diving circuit, but they will be sure to put on a good show while they have hosting duties. Ramon de Meijer, Yorick de Bruijn and Inge Jansen are the stars of the Dutch diving squad, and they all have an excellent chance of taking home some hardware at the end of the competition.
The English team should also be inspired to give their all at the European Championships. This is their last chance to fine tune things before they go home to London to face the enormous pressure of hosting the Olympic Games. This means that they will bring a tightly focused attitude into Eindhoven, which should allow them to do quite well.
Many experts consider the Russian diving team to be the best in Europe, and it should take home the team title as well as a number of individual medals. The Russians are always known for being a very mentally focused and technically tight team, and this means that they should avoid stumbling at the European Diving Championships.
The other squads that could factor into the mix at the championships are Ukraine, Spain and Romania. All of these teams will have multiple divers competing for medals. Any one of them could do well and compete for the team title.
