Archie competing at Junior Worlds High Diving

Hi, my name is Archie, and I'm 14 years old and have been diving with the City of Sheffield Diving Club at Ponds Forge since I was 6 years old. I am a student at King Ecgbert School.

I have been selected to represent Great Britain at the Junior Worlds High Diving Invitational in Montreal, Canada, on 3-4th December 2022. I am really excited because it will be my first time competing as part of the GB team. It is also the first time High Diving has been included in Junior Worlds.

I will spend two weeks in Canada with the team, training and then competing against divers aged 14, 15 & 16 from countries such as the US, Canada, Italy and Ukraine. I will be diving from 12 meters, competing 4 dives over 2 days.

I am the only junior high diver in the UK but there is no funding for the sport. The trip will cost £3000. I will be:

All this is to help towards the cost of the trip. I have also set up this page so that family, friends and fellow divers can donate if they would like to support me with raising the money.

To watch some videos of the dives, you can visit my Instagram here - Archie's instagram

Archie was recently on Look North, interviewed about his High Diving -

Note from my Mum and Dad:

Since the age of 11, Archie has self-taught a feet-first diving move called the “Barani” that High Divers / Cliff Divers use to compete in that aspect of the sport, with heights of 21 meters for women and 27 meters for men. Red Bull, with their 8 stop annual World Series owns this “space”. Governing bodies are now adding high diving into their European and World competitions.

Having always (and still) done these High Diving skills in controlled environments and scenarios, we decided to test out how good he really is. We travelled to Austria in June where he was coached at the famous Area47 by two legendary cliff divers for 3 days. They did this out of the goodness of their heart. He dived up to 16 meters, and the progress and number of dives learnt was incredible.

We then realised he had a competitive list of dives. So in July, we entered him into the famous Infinite Drop High Diving Competition at Ponte Brolla in Switzerland. This is an adult competition with 29 high divers from around the world, some of whom are Red Bull Wild Card divers. He came 4th diving from the 15 meter platform as he is too young to go from the 20 meter.

We then travelled to Italy in August for Archie to be a guest at the Red Bull Cliff Diving Series stop in Polignano. He was given athlete status to attend diver briefings and was asked on day one to dive from the 20 meter (ladies round 2 balcony) and then from the 22 meter ladies platform on day two. This makes him the youngest person to ever dive from a Red Bull Platform. We can’t show this video online out of respect for the brand and his age.

This has been a hugely costly way for Archie to earn the right to be picked by GB as there is no pathway for the sport like there is in traditional diving. Clearly this was our only way for him to be noticed and prove his talent in this fast-growing sport.

As well as allowing Archie to build on his love for this unique aspect of the sport, we hoped he would be picked by GB for the Junior Worlds High Diving Invitational in December in Montreal. He has been picked, but they have no budget left, so we have to find the finance for this trip. Hence this Go Fund Me page.

Thank you for taking the time to visit Archie's page and for any donations made. Your support is massively appreciated :-).

Rachel & James