Jamaica’s British-based diver, Yona Knight-Wisdom praised his coach Jen Leeming after he qualified for his second Olympic Games on Wednesday (May 5) at the 2021 FINA Diving World Cup in Tokyo, Japan.

The 25-year-old Jamaica, who became the first male diver to represent Jamaica at the Olympics in Rio 2016, was a top-12 finisher at the World Cup that served as a qualifier for the Summer Games. He finished 12th with 383.70 points in the 3m springboard competition.

The top 18 divers automatically qualify for the Olympic Games.

The category was won by Germany’s Martin Wolfram, who scored 467.75 points. Knight-Wisdom’s training partner James Heatly scored 461.25 points to claim the silver medal. Alexis Jandrad of France won the bronze medal after scoring 434.25 points.

However, even though he finished outside the medals, Knight-Wisdom expressed his gratitude to his heroic coach.

“What @coachleeming has done for my diving and for our entire squad at home over the past 12 months through the lockdowns and setbacks, is nothing short of heroic,” he posted on Instagram afterwards.

“Thanks so much for helping me rediscover how to dive with confidence even at times when my belief wavered, your belief and energy kept me accountable every day.”

Knight-Wisdom made it to the final after scoring 405.20 points in the preliminary round where he finished 13th. In the semi-finals, he scored 406.80 points that saw him finish seventh and booking a place in the finals where he said he did not dive as well as he would have hoped.

“I did some dives really well but made one big mistake in one of my dives but I wasn’t too bothered,” he said.

“I tried out a new dive, which has a degree of difficulty of 3.8, which was the hardest dive I’ve ever done in competition. It wasn’t as successful as it could be but it was very good for the number of times I’ve done it and was the first time I was doing it in competition.

“So, I am very happy with that. It gives me so much excitement, so much energy for the next couple of months and I have a lot to improve on even more.”

Knight-Wisdom was born in Leeds in the United Kingdom to Jamaican father Trevor Wisdom and Grace Knight, who is from Barbados. He competed at the 2015 World Aquatics Championships and qualified for the 2016 Summer Olympics, creating history as the first Jamaican male diver at the Olympics.

He was also the first male diver from the Caribbean to compete at the Olympic Games.

In 2019, Knight-Wisdom, who is 1.88m tall, won the silver medal in the one-metre springboard at the PanAm Games.