THE LAST time we heard from Jonah Mercieca, (grandson of Lyn and Gilbert Kelly of Nyora) he had just been selected to represent Australia at FINA World Junior Diving Championships in Canada late last year.
According to his dad, Eddy, Jonah did quite well while there.
“He made the final for his individual platform event and finished tenth in the world for his age group.
He also competed in the synchro final, and they were in the running for second place, but the final dive didn’t go so well, and they ended up finishing sixth. He was also a member of a team event where they have four divers, and they finished fifth overall in the team event.”
Altogether, 12 divers representing Australia competed at the meet, with five from Victoria.
After this event Jonah was subsequently selected to represent Australia at the International Youth Diving Meet in Dresden, Germany and attended at the end of April.
He had great success, finishing third on the 10-meter platform to receive a bronze medal.
“He had a great time over there in Germany and began to compete against some guys that were all juniors. This competition is generally seen as the second-best junior comp’ for the season after World Juniors, because the International Diving Meet has countries from Europe represented mainly; but also, Canada and Australia were there too,” Eddy said.
Jonah is now back in Melbourne, preparing for the Australian Open championships, held in Perth at the end of this month.
He is training 25 hours a week, across ten sessions, which includes gym work at the VIS and pool work at MSAC.
In between attending comps and winning medals, Jonah has also had success at the APS school sports and at the start of the year broke another diving record for the under 16’s.
Jonah is planning to continue working hard and hoping to take his talent to the next level.
“He's in the 28:32 Dream Squad, which is like the Australian junior team that they’re targeting for the Olympics of 2028 and 2032. We're hoping that he'll make the national squad by the end of this year - the Senior Squad, and then possibly, the next big competition will be the Commonwealth Games in 2026. While Paris in 2024 would be a dream come true, we’re sort of hoping that the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne will be his senior debut.”
Eddy isn’t sure where Jonah gets his drive, energy and talent from.
“When he was a little kid, he used to jump off the couch and he did a little bit of gymnastics. He just had lots of energy and lots of beans in him and we just found a sport that attended to those needs and had a little bit of danger and risk, which he was happy to undertake - diving off a ten-meter platform, so the sport matched him.”