Greenwood wins debut on three-meter diving board

Joseph Greenwood had previously won diving meets, including several Come as You Are meets at the Alga Norte Aquatic Center in Carlsbad as well as the 2015 Valley League championship meet, but prior to Aug. 20 the Fallbrook resident had only competed on one-meter boards.

The Aug. 20 Come as You Are meet was Greenwood's first competition on a three-meter board, and he won the Junior Olympics 14 and up championship at that meet.

Greenwood accumulated 221.7 points on his six dives. Five judges gave each dive a score of up to 10 points. The highest and lowest scores were discarded, and the remaining three scores were added and then multiplied by that dive's degree of difficulty to provide the score for each dive.

"I was surprised," said Greenwood. "I didn't think I would do that good on three-meter. It was a different experience. On three-meter you have to be a lot more bold."

Greenwood noted that the adjustment was more mental than physical. "You think that you wouldn't have to try hard, but you've got to," he said.

The two-meter additional distance before the diver hits the water allows more time for form but also more time for errors.

"You've got to slow things down a little bit, be more bold," Greenwood said.

"It was sort of a breakthrough for him diving three meters," said Fallbrook Associated Swim Team diving coach Terry Erard. "It's much more of a finesse up there. You've got to be able to control what you're doing."

The Fallbrook High School pool does not have a three-meter diving board, so Greenwood and Erard traveled to the Alga Norte pool for an August practice which was Greenwood's only practice on a three-meter springboard prior to the meet.

"He did well, did really well," said Erard.

Greenwood had not previously tried a reverse dive straight in any competition but executed that dive, which has a 2.0 degree of difficulty, at the Aug. 20 meet. Four of the five judges gave Greenwood a score of seven points, so the three scores and the degree of difficulty gave him 42 points for that dive, which was Greenwood's second highest total among his six dives.

Greenwood had previously utilized his other five dives during competition. The forward 1 1/2 somersault pike has a 1.6 degree of difficulty, his back dive straight has a 1.9 degree of difficulty, the inward dive pike has a 1.4 degree of difficulty, an inward 1 1/2 somersault tuck has a degree of difficulty of 1.9, and the forward 1 1/2 somersault with full twist is scored based on a 2.1 degree of difficulty. The judges gave two 7 1/2-point scores and two 7-point scores for the forward 1 1/2 somersault with full twist; the 45.15 points for that dive were the most for Greenwood during the meet.

Greenwood is currently a junior at Oasis High School and competes for Fallbrook High School under the CIF's Multi-School Teams Status policy which allows students attending certain schools to compete for specified other teams.