Niday again sweeps all three boards at USA Diving Junior Nationals

Published 6:15 pm Monday, July 31, 2023

MOULTRIE — For the second year in a row, ElliReese Niday of Moss Farms Diving has taken the gold medal on the 3-meter and 1-meter springboards and on platform at USA Diving’s Junior National Championships.

Just 11 years old, she now has won seven National titles. She also won a silver and a bronze medal at the 2021 Junior Nationals.

In this year’s championships, being held at the Marguerite Aquatics Complex in Mission Viejo, Calif., Niday won convincingly on all three boards in the 11-and-under age group.

She duplicated her sweep of a year ago when Junior Nationals were held in Midland, Texas.

In 2021, she earned her first National championship, winning on platform as a 9-year-old in Indianapolis.

She also won a silver medal on 1-meter and a bronze medal on 3-meter in Indianapolis.

The young Diving Tiger won her first gold medal in Mission Viejo on platform with a 228.50 that was 55.05 points better than the second-place score put up by Katherine Mo of Huntington Beach, Calif.’s McCormick Divers.

On 1-meter, she took gold with a score of 255.60. Sawyer Watts of the Mission Viejo Natadores was second with a 217.00.

Her 3-meter victory also came over Mo. Niday had a score of 319.30.

Mo was 63.90 points back at 255.40.

All three gold medal-winning scores were higher than those she posted in 2022.

Also on the 3-meter awards stand this year was Niday’s Moss Farms Diving teammate Amelia Gregory, who took the bronze medal with a score of 245.40.

Niday’s performance in Mission Viejo continues to serve notice that she is one of the nation’s top young divers.

After her three-medal performance at the 2021 Nationals when she was just 9, she was selected to represent the U.S. in the Pan American Junior Championships in Tucson, Arizona, where she took a silver medal on platform and finished fourth on 3-meter.

Last year, she was named to U.S. Diving’s High Performance Squad, which is made up of athletes “who most exhibit the potential, skill and determination to become future U.S. Olympic Team members.”

All she has done this summer is win all three boards at U.S. Diving’s Region 3 Championships in Fort Lauderdale and sweep again at the Zone Championships held in June in Orlando.

Junior Nationals continue through Tuesday.

Moss Farms is being represented by 13 divers at Junior Nationals.