BATON ROUGE — LSU signee Alex Bettridge will compete in the AT&T National Diving Championships staged at UCLA in Los Angeles, Calif., August 9-14.
The Austin, Texas, native Bettridge competed in July’s Junior National Championships and posted impressive marks. She registered the fifth highest three-meter dive in the preliminary event and finished 12th in final round. On the one-meter dive, she scored the ninth best preliminary dive and finished in the 11th round. Furthermore, she placed 21st on the platform dive.
Bettridge excelled at Lake Travis high school and finished third, fourth, fourth and second from freshman to senior year respectively at Texas State Diving Championships.
“Alex has done a tremendous job this summer in the classroom and the pool,” Head Diving Coach Doug Shaffer said. “She is competing with the nation’s elite on the Junior and Senior National level, experience which will pave the way for a successful future at LSU. She has a legitimate shot of qualifying for the 2012 US Olympic Team Trials.”
The event will serve to award ten national titles and as a chance to qualify for the 2012 U.S. Olympic Team Trials (the top six teams in the synchronized events and the top 12 finishers in the individual 3-meter and 10-meter will qualify).
In addition, the nationals will be used to select the U.S. roster for the upcoming Pan American Games.
NBC Sports and Universal Sports will televise the August 13-14 finals live. The broadcast begins with one hour of live coverage of the women’s platform final on NBC at 1 p.m. CT on Saturday, Aug. 13, followed by an additional two hours of live coverage of the men’s 3-meter final and women’s synchronized 3-meter final on Universal Sports from 2:30-4:30 p.m. CT. On Sunday, coverage will feature the men’s platform final on NBC from 2-3 p.m. CT, followed by Universal Sports coverage of the women’s 3-meter and men’s synchronized 3-meter final from 3:30-5:30 p.m. CT.
More information and the complete schedule of events can be found www.usadiving.org. Scores, results and daily recaps will be posted once the competition begins.