Margaret Lay

Margaret (Muffi) Lay, born in 1951, was a Hawke’s Bay diver who represented New Zealand in the 1974 Christchurch Commonwealth Games. She was coached by Gerry Fitzgerald and won a national springboard title in 1971. At times she also received coaching from Shona Buscke, sister of champion male diver Cyril Buscke.

Lay, from Hastings, dived for the Mahora club. She was selected in both the platform and springboard for the Commonwealth Games but withdrew from the platform event.

“It was slightly mad,” she said. “I was chosen for the platform, but there were no 10-metre indoor platform diving boards in New Zealand. There was a 10-metre outdoor platform at Newmarket Pool in Auckland and in Dunedin there was an indoor 5-metre wooden platform. There simply wasn’t the opportunity to train properly for the platform at that time.”

In Christchurch, competing in the springboard diving, she finished 10th in a field of 12 – including other New Zealanders Rebecca Ewert and Karen Conway - with 354.81 points. She was 10th after the preliminary section and maintained that position through the final. The event was won by the Canadians, who claimed all three medals.

Lay retired after 1974. Having already earned a degree at Otago University, she did teacher training in Christchurch, and then taught at Burnside High in Christchurch for eight years before retraining in Auckland as a physiotherapist. While she was in Christchurch she did some diving coaching, including some work in the early 1980s with Ann Fargher, who was selected for two Olympics. She was a diving judge at the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games.

She worked for several years as a physio in Christchurch, eventually setting up her own practice. She moved to Sydney for an extended period before returning to New Zealand in 2007, and settling in Auckland.