Canada in Tokyo – Rylan Wiens – Diving

It has been a long wait for diver Rylan Wiens to make his Olympic debut.

The 19-year-old from Pike Lake will finally take to the pool on the last weekend of Tokyo 2020, when his 10-metre platform diving competition gets underway.

Wiens punched his ticket to Tokyo in the perfect way, securing qualification on Canada Day.

“When we went in there, we were expecting a battle from the top three athletes for the two spots we had qualified for,” Wiens said before the Games. “What we came out with was a battle pretty much to the last dive.”

Wiens burst onto the international scene when he made a splash, or not in this case, at the FINA World Cup in Tokyo earlier this year, taking bronze.

That result secured a second place for Team Canada at the Olympics, a place he made his own with a score of 983.05 at the trials.

“It’s always been a super competitive event,” Wiens said. “There’s always been a lot of good athletes, lots of people that have a shot of making it.

“It’s just whoever who is best on the day.”

Wiens, now living in Saskatoon, first got into the sport at the age of just six, and was already atop the podium by age 10 when he won his first junior national title.

“I started swimming lessons in Pike Lake. But after that I did some diving in my grandpa’s pool, just for fun,” he said.

“I joined a diving camp at the Harry Bailey (Aquatic Centre) in Saskatoon. Then after that I moved over to the Shaw Centre when it was built. I’ve been there ever since.”

There is some benefit to Wiens’ competition being one of the last to start in Japan.

“Because I compete near the end, hopefully I’ll be able to attend the closing ceremony because that would be something pretty cool,” Wiens said.

It is due to Wiens’ slimmer body type that he competes in the 10-metre event rather than the three-metre springboard.

That means the Saskatoon product will be in a stacked field, including Chinese favourites Cao Yuan and Yang Jian, Great Britain’s Tom Daley, the Russian Olympic Committee’s Aleksandr Bondar and Canadian No. 1 Nathan Zsombor-Murray.

It promises to be quite the contest, and rather than becoming an armchair diving expert, the 19-year-old offered some advice to everyone at home.

“Turn on the TV and enjoy the entertainment,” he joked.

The 10-metre platform qualifiers get underway at midnight on Friday, and the final goes at midnight Saturday.

Listen to Wiens’ chat with Gormley – https://iono.fm/e/1082374