Senior diver Joshua Thai broke the California men’s swimming and diving program record in the 3-meter dive during a meet against Stanford on Friday. Thai scored 401.78 points, surpassing the previous school record of 391.50 set by Thomas Selby in 2013. This achievement also marked an improvement of more than 12 points over Thai’s prior personal best.
“Ever since my freshman year, I’ve really wanted a school record and I’ve wanted to break 400 points,” Thai said. “It means everything. It’s a culmination of four years of hard work. To do it at the end of my career with all of my teammates there, it just means the world.”
With this performance, Thai now ranks among Cal’s top three divers in all events: he is second on platform with a score of 394.50 and third in the 1-meter event at 345.90.
Thai explained that he usually does not monitor his scores during meets and only realized he had broken the record after his final dive.
“I checked my score after my last dive and was just super happy,” Thai said. “I went straight to Pei (Lin, Cal diving coach) and was jumping around. I got to tell all my teammates and hug them. It just felt great today.”
Yamato Okadome also delivered strong performances for California, winning the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 51.34 seconds and contributing to the Golden Bears’ victory in the 200 medley relay, which finished in 1:23.68.
Despite these individual achievements, California lost to Stanford by a score of 189-119 as both teams concluded their regular seasons.
The team will now prepare for the upcoming ACC Championships scheduled for February 15-21 at Georgia Tech University.
