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Interview: Jamaica's first ever Commonwealth Games diver Yona Knight-Wisdom

Sports Mole speaks to Yona Knight-Wisdom, Jamaica's first-ever Commonwealth Games diver, after his impressive displays in Edinburgh.

Jamaica has a diving representative at the Commonwealth Games for the first time ever thanks to the participation of Yona Knight-Wisdom.

The 18-year-old from Leeds could have represented Barbados, England or Jamaica internationally, opting to represent the latter - the country of his father's birth - as it gave him more funding and meant that he had a better chance of competing internationally because he didn't have to battle strong competition for a place in the Great Britain team.

Support for Knight-Wisdom at Edinburgh's Royal Commonwealth Pool on the first two days of competition has been huge. He finished fifth in last night's 1m springboard final and then qualified for the 3m final earlier today.

Sports Mole caught up with the teenager after today's 3m preliminaries to discuss the competition and more.

Jamaica's Yona Knight-Wisdom competes in the Commonwealth Games men's 3m springboard preliminaries at the Royal Commonwealth Pool in Edinburgh on July 31, 2014© Getty Images

You were in and amongst the medals throughout last night's 1m final, but just missed out. How are you feeling about it today?

"Last night was just absolutely phenomenal. I struggled to get off to sleep because I was thinking about the competition.

"I had a quick watch of it [online] to see what the commentator was saying and what the crowd were like. It was absolutely surreal, I couldn't believe that that had happened just a few hours before."

How about today? You've qualified for another Commonwealth final.

"I'm really happy that I got through to the final. It's been a bit of a struggle this year with injuries and everything so leading up to it I was asking a few questions of myself, but I'm glad that I've dived well.

"That's my second-best score of the year so I'm really, really happy."

When you're back in Leeds, what's the priority? University or diving?

"At the moment definitely diving, for sure. I love going to uni, I love all my uni mates, but diving's my priority. It comes first every single time."

You're much taller than your competitors. Do you think that it hampers your diving ability?

"Yeah, I've felt that for my whole diving career. I've always not been able to do the difficult dives that, for example, Jack [Laugher] and James [Denny] can do, but I somehow manage to dive as well as I do."

Tonight's 3m springboard final is Knight-Wisdom's final event of the Commonwealth Games. He managed the seventh-best score in qualifying.

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Jack Laugher of England celebrates after winning the gold medal in the Men's 1m Springboard Final at Royal Commonwealth Pool during day seven of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games on July 30, 2014
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