Rochester, Michigan: At the Michigan High School Swim and Dive championship at Oakland University, Chelsea’s Anna McAllister is a bit overwhelmed by the amount of talent surrounding her. The competition seems fierce, and most of her competitors are older and slightly more experienced than her and have been here at this level before. But the young tenth grader knows she has the skills and talent and that she belongs here because she knows what she has achieved to get this far. So she pushes through the fear and does her best. And it paid off because she was the best as she won the state diving championship with a 407.40 score.
Anna has been diving for almost 8 years now and it all started when she was a young girl and would do swim lessons at Chelsea and thought the divers looked cool. A few years later her very supportive parents saw diving in the community summer sport and she and her sister Alie started diving.
She loves diving and it takes up a lot of her time and in the fall she trains constantly for diving, an hour before school and an hour and a half after school. Year-round she will train 4 to 6 days a week for about 2 and a half hours a day for her club team. For her, the best thing about diving is the reward of getting a new dive or doing well on something harder. But the toughest thing for her is when she is working really hard on something but it keeps going wrong.
She doesn’t have much free time with school and her diving schedule but when she can she likes to just hang out with her friends, listen to music, and go on walks. Diving takes up most of her time.
“It feels so great to be the state champ,” McAllister happily exclaimed. “I have worked so hard to get to that place I am now with diving and it feels like all of my hard work has paid off.”
Paid off indeed as she is receiving accolades for her hard training and work she puts in and will be getting the attention of many college programs. Anna is the daughter of William and Amanda McAllister.