Akhil Midhad, a seventh grade student at Grover Middle School, qualified for the National Diving Championship to be held in Coral Springs, Florida, on Saturday and Sunday, April 28 and 29. He qualified based on his performance at the regionals at the College of New Jersey last month. He will be performing reverse flip, front dive, back dive, inward dive, reverse dive, front 1 1/2, and inward flip dives when he competes for a higher level event in the 12-13 age group category in Florida.##M:[more]##
His father, Sanjeev Midha, is founder and president of a multinational financial service company. His mother, Sunita Midha, is a molecular biologist and owns a chain of Indian restaurants including Mehek in Princeton and another one in Baltimore, Maryland. His brother, Ashim, 15, was formerly a swimmer and is now a member of Peddie School’s varsity crew team. The family has lived in Plainsboro for 10 years.
Akhil, who has been swimming since the age of nine months, has only been diving for a year. “Akhil attributes his success to the hard work of his coach Candace Gottlieb at Blue Dolphins Diving School at the College of New Jersey. Within a span of about one year, the school was able to prepare Akhil for nationals,” says his mother.
