ElliReese Niday, 13, Claims National Title in Women’s Platform
The field at USA Diving National Championships had already set the stage for a changing of American diving guard. Enter ElliReese Niday.
The 13-year-old won the women’s platform title on Thursday at Auburn University, representing the hometown War Eagle Dive Club. Her score of 721.40 points outlasted Bayleigh Cranford by 10 points in a wire-to-wire victory.
Niday hails from Moultrie, Georgia. An accomplished junior diver, taking down senior competition that includes a number of prominent collegiate divers is a significant step up. She joins Hailey Hernandez, who won 3-meter at 13 in 2016, among recent youthful champions. Her mother, Lauryn McCalley Niday, is a two-time springboard national champ.
“It doesn’t feel real,” Niday, who turned 13 in February, told USA Diving. “I just tried to stay focused on my own dives and celebrate after.”
In the other final on Thursday, the penultimate day of the competition, Maxwell Flory took home the men’s 3-meter competition. The meet wraps up Friday with women’s 3-meter and men’s platform finals.
Both fields are experiencing significant change in the composition of competitors this year. The men’s 3-meter was without two-time Olympian Andrew Capobianco. Also absent was Tokyo Olympian Tyler Downs, who dove that the 2022 and 2023 World Championships.
The women’s platform, which included just 23 competitors, only included only two divers that have represented the U.S. at a World Championship or the Olympics, both in Worlds mixed platform synchro (Cranford in 2024 and Kaylee Bishop in 2023; Bishop wasn’t a factor in finishing ninth.) Daryn Wright, the Paris Olympian who teamed with Cranford to win women’s synchro platform this week, didn’t compete in individual platform.
Niday led by 23.6 points over Ella Roselli after prelims. The lead was nearly 40 points over Cranford after semifinals, the Texas diver surging from eighth in prelims to second in quarterfinals. In the final, Niday delivered the highest-scoring dive of the first round at 83.20 points. That helped her withstand a bobble in the second round when she got only 30.45 points.
Cranford closed hard, delivering the highest scoring dive in both the fifth and sixth rounds to pick up about 10 points on Niday in each, including a 90.10 score in the sixth round. But the 13-year-old still had 10 points to spare, Cranford tallying 711.40. They were well ahead of Roselli, who finished third in 661.70, then another big gap to fourth-place Anna Lemkin’s tally of 624.80.
On 3-meter, Flory outlasted Collier Dyer in a back-and-forth final. Jack Ryan was third with a score of 878.95. Fourth was 2024 Paris Olympian Carson Tyler in 860.80, then a gap back to Luke Sitz in fifth. Max Weinrich was the sixth diver to break 800 points. Grayson Campbell, who dove at Worlds in 2024, was seventh. Nick Harris, the runner-up on 1-meter, finished ninth.
Tyler led the way in prelims, which was conducted on Tuesday, with a score of 426.25. Flory was the last of four divers to top 400 points, with Ryan and Sitz in between. Flory took the lead in semifinals, moving 5 points ahead of Tyler, with Dyer moving from fifth to third.
Dyer surged into the lead in the third round of the final by a half point by delivering a 307C that was the best of the round, scoring 85.75 points. He also had the highest-scoring dive of the first round. Flory had scored 85 points on his second dive of the final, which put him in position to pounce when Dyer faltered on his fourth dive, a 207C that yielded just 50.40 points, 11th-best of the round.
The Missouri diver rallied with 87.40 points in the fifth round to get within two points. But Flory saved his best for last at 95.55 points on his 5156B in the final round to take the title.
“I’m just trying to relax, not think about it. Just do it like normal,” said Flory, who was diving less than a month after breaking his hand. “It’s a great dive for me. I love that dive. I do it great in practice all the time … just removing myself from the competition, removing myself from the outcome and just letting myself dive like normal.”
