It was a successful weekend at the Scottish National & Open Diving Championships, including performances hitting Birmingham 2022 consideration scores.

James Heatly took victory in the 1m springboard with a personal best score of 407.45, before pairing with Ross Beattie to record a 385.89 in the 3m synchro final. Both scores meet the consideration scores for next year’s Commonwealth Games.

Heatly told Scottish Swimming: “It is really nice to be back. For the past year and a half, the focus has all been on the three metre so it’s nice to get back down on the one metre board. I’ve a lot of love for the one metre, I do really enjoy it. I’ve not done those dives in competition for a while so I’m feeling happy.

“It is Commonwealth Games year so the goal is to hit all those qualifying standards. It is good to have the one metre box ticked and that was actually a PB for me as well. First competition back, a PB, it’s a really great starting point for the year ahead.”

Beattie, who has put his University studies on hold to focus on Birmingham 2022, narrowly missed out on consideration standards in the individual event, but was delighted to meet the standard in the synchro.

He said: “Now a weight has been lifted off our shoulders and we know we have one in the bag, we can now move forward into the other events at the beginning of 2022, and not have to worry too much about the scores. I don’t need to think about that as much. It’s about what individually can I do on the day, and the scores will hopefully come just from that.

“It would mean everything to be on Team Scotland. Just to be recognised for everything I’ve trained for over the past nine or ten years. To be able to compete on the world stage with people I have become very good friends with would be incredible.”

Grace Reid, who won Scotland’s first ever medal for women’s diving at a Commonwealth Games in 2018, sealed victory in the 3m springboard event, taking the lead with her penultimate dive and finishing with a final score of 297.60, also meeting the consideration standard for Birmingham 2022.

She said: “The qualifying standard does play on my mind. I knew I had to dive well but I think for me the scores were going to be a bonus this weekend. I was more interested in coming back, enjoying my sport and being able to just compete. That’s something I’d lost for a while, but I felt like myself this weekend so that’s in some ways better than any score. But the fact I got the score is the cherry on top of the icing.”

A full round-up of the event can be found on the Scottish Swimming website.