MOULTRIE — This year’s U.S. Olympic Diving Team Trials will have a distinct Moultrie flavor to it.

Former Moss Farms Diving Tiger and current Indiana Hoosier Carson Tyler will be vying for a berth on the team that will represent the U.S. in the 2024 Olympics, scheduled for July 26-August 11, in Paris, France.

Three former Moss Farms coaches — Jay Lerew, Wenbo Chen and John Fox — also will be in Knoxville, Tennessee, for June 16-23 Team Trials, guiding aspiring young divers of their own.

And Colquitt County’s Camille Akridge Bowden, who was a member of the 1995 Diving Tigers that won the Junior Nationals team championship under Lerew and Wenbo, will round out the five-member Moss Farms contingent as one of the Trials’ nine judges.

Fox was the Moss Farms coach until last year when he took over as the head diving coach at Auburn.

While in Moultrie, he accompanied Tyler to the 2021 Olympic Team Trials at Indiana.

Tyler, who had just graduated from Colquitt County High, was fifth and youngest Diving Tiger to reach Olympic Trials.

Moss Farms divers Brent Roberts and Lane Bassham were at the University of Alabama when they qualified for the Olympic Trials. Clayton Moss was at the University of Kentucky. Lauryn McCalley was diving at Tennessee.

Tyler competed in three events and reached the finals in two that year.

“He did real well,” Fox said. “Our goal was to prepare him for this year’s Olympics.

“I think if we had changed our strategy a little bit, we could have made a run a the Olympic team. But we were both so young then.”

Three years later, after success at the national and international levels, Tyler is among the favorites to earn an Olympic team berth.

“I believe he’s got a shot,” Fox said. “His experience over the last three years has set him up to make the team.”

The Indiana University junior has recently won two more NCAA championships, one on 3-meter and one on platform, competed in the World Championships, earned a bronze medal on 10-meter at the Americas Cup and took the silver medal on 10-meter at the Canada Cup.

His NCAA platform championship was his second in a row.

Tyler is coached by Indiana University and Olympic Team coach Drew Johansen.

“Drew will have him prepared,” Fox said of Tyler. “I think he is a top-five guy. But I think he is most prepared on platform.

“It’s going to be a tough run. He is going to have to dive pretty much perfect on platform to make the team. There is going to be a lot of pressure.”

There are only four spots available: two on 3-meter springboard and two on platform.

“It’s going to come down to his mindset at the meet,” Fox said. “This is something he’s probably dreamt about since he was very young. He going to have to rise to the occasion.”

Tyler is a two-time Junior National champion and while representing Colquitt County High, he is a two-time Georgia High School Association champion. He holds the Georgia state diving record.

“Moultrie should be tuned in,” Fox said of the Trials, which will be televised on NBC and Peacock. “They could have their first Olympian.”

While Fox obviously will be watching Tyler with much interest, he has three members of his Auburn University diving team seeking Olympic team berths as well: Conner Pruitt, who will compete on 3-meter, and Ashlynn Sullivan and Abigail Farrar, who will be in the platform field.

Pruitt has competed at the Trials before. It will be the first time at the Trials for Sullivan and Farrar.

Bowden is a veteran national and international diving judge and has traveled to Chile, Puerto Rico, Australia and Ukraine in that position.

She dived at Florida State and served as an assistant coach and interim head coach at Moss Farms before obtaining her certification as an international judge.

While serving as the Moss Farms Diving coach in 2015, she received the Robert “Moose” Moss Award at the YMCA National Diving Championships in Orlando.

Lerew was lured away from the Milwaukee YMCA program by Moose Moss in 1989 and worked closely with Moss until the legendary coach’s death in 1993.

After leading the Diving Tigers to the Junior National team championship in 1995, he was named U.S. Diving’s age group Coach of the Year.

He was selected to carry the Olympic Torch on part of its journey through Colquitt County on its way to Atlanta for the 1996 Summer Games.

He left later that year to take over the Team Orlando program and in 2000 he was named as the U.S. Olympics Team’s head coach.

Lerew has been the head diving coach at Texas A&M since 2009.

Wenbo came to Moultrie in 1994 as an assistant to Lerew and in 1996 became the team’s head coach, holding the job until 2001.

Before coming to Moultrie, he was the coach for the Chinese National Team from 1983-1991. He left to become the head coach at Purdue and then was named the head coach at the National Diving Center in Indianapolis, where he remained from 2005-2009. For the last 15 years, Wenbo has been the head diving coach at the University of Minnesota.

The Golden Gophers’ Sarah Bacon, a five-time NCAA national champion, is an Olympic Team Trials favorite in both the 3-meter and 3-meter synchro events.

Both Lerew and Wenbo were inducted into the Colquitt County Sports Hall of Fame in 2007.