Katura Horton-Perinchief has spent the summer polishing the island’s raw talent at her Star Diving camp at the Aquatics Facility, National Sports Centre.

Horton-Perinchief, who became the first black woman to compete in Olympic diving at the Athens Games in 2004, has coached 144 youngsters aged between five and 14 for the past six weeks.

Since Star Diving launched in 2014, the year after the Aquatics Facility opened, Horton-Perinchief has seen the interest in the camps steadily grow, with many of this summer’s crop returning for a fourth year.

The 34-year-old, who began diving competitively in Canada at the age of seven, believes Bermuda has an abundance of natural divers and with “a little fine tuning can be great”.

She said: “It’s a raw talent thing that island kids have anyway, always diving off boats, bridges and rocks.

“But even if they are rock divers they have never been coached and the second this pool was built I said, ‘We have to give an opportunity to the kids who are here’.

“In the beginning it was just about getting kids out and introducing them to a sport they had probably never seen before. We’ve since seen these little talents emerge.”

Although many of the thrill-seeking youngsters do not need any convincing to jump of the higher platforms, Horton-Perinchief has a few tricks up her sleeve to encourage those who may need a little more coaxing.

“That’s why we take them young!” says Horton-Perinchief, who started diving off bridges in Bermuda when she was three.

“We have a mantra in camp that there’s no such thing as brave people, that being brave is a choice you can wake up each morning and make.

“That allows them to get up in the morning and think, OK, today I’m going to go a little bit higher, or today I’m going to do this a little bit better.

“By day three or four it’s not just my words, they’re believing their own inner voice.”

Coaching alongside Horton-Perinchief are her mother Ellen-Kate Horton — the shortstop for the Big Blue Machine softball team who won gold at the CAC Games 1978 in Medellín, Colombia — and Terry Faulkenberry. All three are certified coaches while several guest coaches have been brought over such as former top Swedish diver Martina Andrén.

“My mom’s background is in sport anyway,” says Horton-Perinchief, who also competed at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002 and Melbourne in 2006.

“But when I was diving she took up coaching and judging because of me. She’s a Fina-certified judge and a Canadian-certified level three coach.

“Every week I’ve also brought in a visiting coach from overseas, lots of Canadians and Americans, some top-notch and they love coaching the kids.”

Horton-Perinchief, one of three Bermudian Olympic divers along with Francis “Goose” Gosling (London 1948 and Helsinki 1952) and Mickey Johnson (1952), said she would love for Star Diving to be an all-year- round programme.

“We try to enthuse the kids with as much love for the sport as we can during the summer,” she says.

“Come April, when it’s time to register, they come back in their droves.

“I would love to have a programme all-year round if we could cover this pool in a bubble or something. That’s what it takes to make a champion.”

For more details e-mail stardivingbda@gmail.com.