‘I don’t really have a word to describe the feeling’ – Diver Jake Passmore gets green light for Paris Olympics

Jake Passmore describes the wait as brutal. Those four months he had to endure before he found out he would be diving at the Paris Olympics. Last February, Passmore put himself in a promising position to get an invite after he finished 17th in the 3m springboard at the World Aquatic Championships in Doha. Then he had to wait to see if a spot would open up for him for Paris. It did.

Just under a fortnight ago, two days after his 19th birthday, he got a phone call from Damian Ball, Swim Ireland’s national diving coach, to tell him he was in. So Passmore becomes the second Irish diver in 76 years to qualify for an Olympics after Oliver Dingley represented Ireland at Rio 2016. Nearly two weeks on from the news, Passmore was still in a bit of shock.

“I almost don’t really have a word to describe the feeling. Not nervous, I don’t know, absolutely blank,” Passmore said yesterday after his place was confirmed by the Olympic Federation of Ireland, which brings to 66 the number of athletes who have been selected to represent Team Ireland in Paris.

​Passmore’s potential has been there in plain sight. Two years ago he was on a roll, creating firsts for Irish diving. In July 2022, he won a first ever European diving medal for Ireland with a bronze in the 1m springboard at the Junior Championships in Romania. Less than five months later, he made more history when he won a first ever World level diving medal for Ireland with silver in the 1m springboard in the World Junior Championships in Canada.

So, what makes him so good? “I think I’m quite composed with what I’m doing. I’ve got a massive emphasis on my form in my dives and trying to make them look nice which has come about from my coach Marc [Holdsworth] who was relentless for the past three years, well probably longer than three years, in trying to get everything to look as perfect as possible.”

Passmore was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire which is where he lives. He qualifies to represent Ireland through his maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Barker, who moved from Dublin to Bradford when she was five. He says he never considered representing Great Britain.

“No, that was never in my mind. As soon as I started getting serious about international diving when I was about, I think I was 10, and it was my first ever Irish nationals, I’ve decided that I’m competing for Ireland. And I stuck with that and I never thought about changing my mind. It was always something I wanted to do and it’s paid off massively.”

Under his coach in Leeds, Passmore trains with GB Olympic divers like Lois Toulson and Jack Laugher. During a heavy training block, like he’s doing at the moment, he could spin off up to 100 dives a day across two pool sessions. He’s had to learn to stay calm in the act of diving and took up juggling as a way to help him tune out.

“I’m quite an emotional person and that would really leech into my competition. Say if I’d done a bad dive, you could see it written all over me and judges see that and they’d be like ‘this is going downhill quickly’.

“When I’m diving, I try to be as blank as possible so I’m not stressing, I’m not worrying, because the only thing stressing is going to do is make me dive worse. So the calmer I am, the better really.”

Because of his youth, Passmore’s Olympic ambitions were for LA 2028, but qualifying for Paris has meant a recalibration.

“It’s more of a personal goal, just to be happy with what I’ve done. I don’t know how to word it, but if I can cope with the pressure that would be great, I have done that anyway at world events. More than fine. Just do the six best dives I can, then anything can happen, can’t it?”

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