Two-time Jamaican Olympian Yona Knight-Wisdom walked away with three medals and a possible diving partner from the Scottish National and Open Diving Championships. The Championships ran from December 2-5 at the Royal Commonwealth Pool in Edinburgh.
The 26-year-old UK-based diver represented Jamaica at the Olympics in 2016 and 2021 and has worked consistently at improving his craft with the aim of joining the top tier in the world of diving. On the evidence of what occurred on the weekend, he might have taken a step closer to that goal.
In the one-metre springboard last Thursday, December 2, he was second to James Heatley, who claimed gold by scoring 407.45 to the Jamaican’s 386.35. Ross Haslam (377.45) was third.
A day later, the 2019 Pan Am Games silver medalist took bronze in the three-metre springboard scoring 427.75. Heatley (459.95) was once again the winner while Jourdan Houlden (441.55) took the silver medal.
Then on Sunday, the pair of Knight-Wisdom and Yohan Eskrick Parkinson finished second in the three-metre synchro scoring 377.60 to finish behind Heatley and his partner Ross Beattie.
Danny Mabbott and Lucas Thomson (330.79) finished third.
Knight-Wisdom told Sportsmax.TV Monday, that he was quite satisfied with his early-season form.
“This was the first competition of the season just to warm up for what’s to come, but a really great start, a higher level than where I normally am at this stage,” he said.
“I’m satisfied with what I’ve been able to do in the competition environment. They are nowhere near perfect yet in training but I was able to get many elements right in competition even with the minimal preparation we’ve had so far as this is so early in the season.”
He was also excited about the potential partner he has in Eskrick-Parkinson, whom he said he met shortly before the pandemic hit in 2020.
“He got in touch with me on Instagram just sending me a few videos of him diving,” Knight-Wisdom explained.
“We spoke a little without making any plans, then after Tokyo was out of the way I decided to see if we could make something happen.
“He is Canadian, currently studying medicine at Northwestern University, has a Jamaican father and just waiting for his passport to come through.”
He revealed that he and Eskrick-Parkinson managed to get sessions in before the competition and that helped a lot in how well they performed in Scotland.
“Yohan arrived just over a week before the event and we had only three proper synchro sessions before the day of competition,” Yona said.
“But once we figured out the basic timings, we actually matched up so naturally I was genuinely shocked and tried to not get too excited too soon.”
The duo is now making plans to represent Jamaica in the coming year.
“Certainly, I’ve mentioned to Martin Lyn about the possibility of Commonwealth (Games) selection, so he’ll have to go to the JOA about that, but Grand Prix and world championships in 2022 are definitely on the cards,” Knight-Wisdom said.