Diving into the season: a profile of Sydney Hanson

Diving is often an overlooked sport in high school but that's not the case for freshman Sydney Hanson. With only a couple years of experience and prior experience in gymnastics, Hanson is ranked currently fourth in the state.

“I was a gymnast for 11 years, but got hurt and had to find a sport with low impact,” Hanson said.

Her prior knowledge has put her at an advantage over other divers who may even have been in the pool double her time.

“My favorite part of diving is using my previous skills I knew in a different way,” Hanson said.

Her current fourth ranked score, 409.30 set in Iowa city, also ranks her the only freshman in the top ten.

“Diving is scored between one through 10, but depending on the difficulty, the judges will take off the lowest score and highest score out of five judges and the middle three are multiplied by the difficulty. You add up your total of either six dives or 11 depending on the meet and that is your total score,” she said.

Her favorite dive to do is currently a front double pike in which she does two somersaults and finishes into pike.

“It’s a really fun sport, but it's hard to be consistent because I could have a really good practice and then have bad meet,” Hanson said.

With her current ranking, Sydney would qualify for the state meet on Nov. 4 and is looking to place.

“I’m really looking forward to meeting new people and the competition and state, of course,” Hanson said.