Diving deep by JORDAN GANS and HILDA HUANG photography by Hilda Huang
The Viking digs deep to find the future of Paly diving: two promising freshmen, Reed Merritt (‘16) and Mimi Lin (‘16), who have bright careers ahead of them.
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ew sports have a lower performance to training time ratio than diving; an Olympic repertoire typically lasts no more than a minute or two, a high school six-dive list no more than 30 seconds. That hasn’t deterred divers Reed Merritt (‘16) and Mimi Lin (‘16) from training 14 hours per week, hurling themselves at water with speeds up to 35 miles per hour and practicing drills on dry land by way of trampolines,
springboards and many, many mats. Now both ranked nationally, Merritt and Lin have outgrown their gymnastics roots due to injury, having used their natural abilities to augment their skills in their new diving careers. Senior Cole Plambeck (‘13) says that much of the divers’ success can be attributed to their gymnastics background. Merritt and Lin are currently key competitors on the Palo Alto varsity diving squad. They also continue to compete and dive for the Stanford club div-
ing team and had been diving for the club for many years before going to Paly. Teammate Plambeck is on both Paly and the Stanford Diving club with the freshmen. “They are both excellent divers and will make an impact all four years of their Paly careers,” Plambeck (‘13) said. Plambeck is committed to dive at Duke University and was selected to attend the Junior Elite Squad (JES), the first step in being selected to the U.S. Olympic team. He knows
MID AIR Reed Merrit (‘16) flips and pikes off the high dive. Reed spends over 14 hours a week practicing. 30 | T H E V I K I N G |
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