A Cherry Hill East sophomore traveled to Zadar, Croatia, early last month to compete in an international diving competition.
“I feel like I personally did very good,” Nathan Dyer said of his performance. “In synchro – which is the one where you and another person are synched up at the same time trying to almost look like one person – we got second in that. And then I got 15th and 16th place in my individual event.”
Several years ago, a group of Croatians were scouting colleges, including the College of New Jersey, where Dyer and his teammates train. They were then invited to the European country to compete for the U.S. Dyer was joined by Caleb Arnot, a senior at Interboro High School in Prospect Park, Pennsylvania.
Once in Croatia, Dyer did some sightseeing with his dad and head coach Eric Blevin.
When he competes there again next year, Dyer hopes to improve his full out, a dive that involves a front flip and a twist, and his reverse two and half, a dive of backward flips on the 3- and 1-meter-high diving boards. While he sticks to the springboard for shorter dives, Dyer ascends the 5- and 7-meter-high platform boards. He’s working his way up to the 10-meter boards.
Dyer, who trains up to six days a week, dove for the Jersey Diving Academy for five years – a group from there accompanied him to Croatia – and swam at Downs Farm Swim Club for seven. During the summer there, he practices with kids in the community.
The Croatia competition wasn’t the first time Dyer left the U.S. to dive. In 2023, his second year in the sport, he participated in Lund, a diving meet in Sweden. He wasn’t able to go to Croatia last year because of an injury.
“I did not get to go … after I snapped my leg in half on a diving board,” he recalled. “I was out of commission for a little bit … I snapped my tibia and fibula in half on a 1-meter diving board.”
Yet Dyer went back to diving about two-and-a-half months later.
“After breaking my leg, I came back and I just wanted to improve so that mistakes like that never happen again,” he recounted. “And my coach Eric and my coach Morgan, they have just really helped me through everything, making me not only a better diver, but a better person, too.”
Despite his injury, Dyer came back stronger.
“It was a very mental struggle getting back,” he acknowledged. ” … I started training like right when I was able to get back into the water, so I started with small little things, getting over the fear of diving slowly. And then I eventually just hit better than what it was before.”
Dyer started his diving career about seven years ago with encouragement from his parents.
“At first, my parents wanted me to just try it out, because I had a little background with gymnastics for like literally half a year,” he related. “And they thought that I would enjoy still doing flips, so they signed me up for diving. And then I just caught on quickly.
“I thought it was such an interesting sport from, since ever, almost.”
Dyer hopes to continue diving at the University of Miami or Virginia Tech.
Nathan Dyer (left to right) with his coach Eric Blevin and Caleb Arnot, who accompanied him to the competition in Croatia.
