Oliver Dingley bridges 68-year Olympic diving gap

Ireland will have a springboard diver at the Olympic Games for the first time in 68 years after Oliver Dingley secured qualification in Rio yesterday.

Dingley (23) needed to make the semi-finals (top 18) of diving’s last qualifying event which took place in the same outdoor pool that will host the Olympics this summer.

High scores in the third and fourth round of the 3m event put him into the top eight and he held on to finish in 11th place, comfortably clinching his treasured Olympic spot ahead of today’s semi-finals.

“I’m exhausted, it was probably the most stressful four hours of my life but the team effort from my coach and everyone back home to get me to Rio has been absolutely fantastic, I can’t believe it,” Dingley said.

The preliminary round, with 56 divers, took three hours to compete .

“It was a one dive at-a-time process,” he added. “My coach was with me the whole time trying to keep my nerves down. We were just throwing a ball about, just trying to keep my mind off it.”

A native of North Yorkshire, Dingley won Commonwealth bronze for Britain two years ago but switched allegiances soon afterwards thanks to his Cork grandmother, who hailed from Spike Island.

Eddie Heron was Ireland’s only previous Olympic diver back in 1948 but the Dubliner only got to take part in the preliminaries because the swim team subsequently withdrew due to a political row over their official name.

Dingley sat out international competition for the past year in order to qualify for Ireland and lives and trains on the National Sports Campus in Abbotstown.

“I’m so happy I made the decision and am very humbled Ireland accepted me,” he said.

Dublin teenager Natasha McManus (17), who trains with him, is hoping to match his achievement today in the women’s 3m qualifiers