Katura Horton-Perinchief may be a Colonial ? but nobody is ruling her in the pool so far this season.

The Bermudian diver has announced her arrival at George Washington University in unbeaten fashion, setting pool and college records and winning the Atlantic 10 Conference?s Performer of the Week award twice within a month.

Moving from the University of Texas ? where the then Longhorn earned All-Big 12 Conference honours ? to her new Washington DC base was a big change because ?GW is much less athletically focused than UT and all sports take a back seat to basketball.?

However, she is quickly finding her niche and responding well to her lead role on the Colonials diving team.

Be it on springboard or platform, she is undefeated in eight meets and has booked a place in the Zone A Championships in March which is a prequalification meet for the NCAA championships.

She performed so well against East Carolina University in mid-November and against Old Dominion in early December that she was voted Atlantic 10 Conference?s Performer of the Week, twice beating out competitors in all sports throughout the Conference.

?I?ve had a really great season. It?s been wonderful. I have posted personal bests, broken pool records and meet records galore. But it?s rough here because, even though I?m winning all the time, every other sport takes a back seat to basketball.

?We are a Division One NCAA-recognised sport just like basketball but we don?t get any of the perks that their players do. Nobody recognises us and not a lot of people come to our meets. ?It?s very different from being a Longhorn with all the campus fame and hoopla,? she noted.

If things go as planned though, her anonymity could well be short-lived. Katura is intent on winning the Atlantic 10 Conference individual championship and qualifying for her first NCAA championships.

It won?t be easy as GW?s diving zone has the minimum four qualifying spots for the NCAA showdown.

?It was one of the things I wrestled with when I left Texas. Zone A (GW?s zone) only has the four spots. Texas? zone (Zone D), on the other hand, has ten NCAA spots.

?It?s going to be a lot tougher to make it here but the competition won?t be as tough. I will have to win one of the three boards (one and three-metre springboard and ten-metre platform) or come second on the three-metre springboard.?

What?s more, she has hardly opposed any of those likely to challenge her at the zonal meet because the Colonials do not normally participate in a zone but rather in one-on-one competitions against other colleges which are not necessarily in their division.

?I know the George Mason and West Point girls will be there. They are the only schools in our zone who I?ve met so far and I did well against both teams.

?Other than those two, it will be a total surprise. I don?t know how well any of the others dive. We will see,? she said, clearly relishing the unknown factor.I?m pretty confident nonetheless. It would be nice to see how they dive beforehand but the advantage could work both ways. They, too, will be caught off guard. The element of surprise is often a great tactic. They don?t know how good I am and I think I might like that!?

Given that they only have four qualifying berths, the Bermudian is well aware that?s a sign that no Zone A competitor ?finalled at last year?s NCAA Championships? and therefore it?s not a strong division.

Still, she will not be slacking off in her mission and ? between pursuing a Masters in Public Health and studying for the MCAT in order to start medical school ? she is hitting a line-up of tough dives with greater degrees of difficulty.

?I?m diving very well ? getting my new dives off. There?s a front three-and-a-half somersaults tuck, back two-and-a-half somersaults pike and a reverse one-and-a-half somersaults with two-and-a half twists. They are all on the three-metre springboard.?

It?s a step up for the 21-year-old competitor who watched her more accomplished rivals execute these dives at the Athens Olympics last summer. Now that she is growing in the sport, she is adding them to her own repertoire.

?This season is a building one for me. If I don?t make it to the NCAAs, it won?t be the end of the world. I feel I have learned a lot this year.

?I?m much more confident about the dives I?m doing now. Going to the Olympics made me want to do bigger and better dives so that, should I decide to compete at the next Olympics, I will be a force to be reckoned with.?