Trials Offer a Stage for the Next Great Diving Star

FEDERAL WAY, Wash. —  The winners, the eight divers who qualify for the Olympics this week at the Weyerhauser King County Aquatics Center, will make a six-city tour the Friday after the trials end.

Pump it up, divers. That’s the message U.S. Diving wants to send. Or, as Mission Viejo Nadadores Coach Russ Bertram says, “We want to show people that diving is a fan-friendly sport that is fun to watch. Like figure skating or gymnastics.”

What will help that mission, though, is to find a star. As the diving trials begin tonight at 7 with the women’s three-meter preliminaries and then semifinals, the search is on to find a hero, to nab a Greg Louganis-in-the-making.

Only four divers who competed in Atlanta in 1996 for the U.S. team that won one bronze medal in the women’s platform (Mary Ellen Clark) and one bronze medal in men’s three-meter (Mark Lenzi), are here this week. Melissa Moses, 28, of Orange Park, Fla., finished fourth in 1996 in women’s three-meter and Becky Ruehl, 22, of Lakeside Park, Ky., finished fourth in women’s platform. But both have been hindered by injuries the last two years and couldn’t even make the U.S. Diving media guide.

Also back are Jenny Keim, 22, of Miami, who finished ninth on the three-meter board in Atlanta and David Pichler, 31, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who was sixth in the men’s platform final.

The person voted most likely to emerge as a trials star Monday as divers began gathering for the week’s competitions was 21-year-old Mark Ruiz of Orlando, Fla.

Ruiz, born in Puerto Rico, won the springboard and platform competitions at this year’s U.S. Indoor Nationals. But Ruiz is recovering from an April groin injury, suffered when diving specially for TV cameras. That is the danger of being a future star--getting hurt doing the promos.

Laura Wilkinson, 22, of The Woodlands, Texas, was the 1999 platform winner at the U.S. Summer Nationals and she had finished second in the platform the year before. But Wilkinson, a public relations major at the University of Texas, broke her right foot in three places in April while doing dry-land training. She has only been able to dive off the tower for three weeks and still wears a special boot on the foot, which will need surgery after the season.

Erica Sorgi, the 17-year-old from the Mission Viejo Nadadores, had seemed ready to dominate the women’s competition after she won the three-meter at the 1999 Summer Nationals and finished fourth in the platform. But Sorgi has undergone a coaching switch and a brief retirement last winter and she is still searching for her 1999 form.

Ventura’s Dumais brothers, Justin, 21, and Troy, 20, would love to make the team and just might. Troy finished third at the 1996 trials on the platform, just missing a spot when, as he described himself, “I was a clueless puppy.” Troy says being so close was both crushing and fortifying. “I was so close,” he says, “but also I realized I could do this. I’ll be better prepared this time.” Troy finished second in both the platform and three-meter at the 1999 Spring Nationals.

Justin, who has yet to receive a grade lower than an A at the University of Texas, finished second at the 1999 U.S. Summer Nationals.

Ken Armstrong, Wilkinson’s coach and also husband to Patty, who, at 32, is the oldest competitor and the mother of 3-year-old Dylan, says: “This is the most wide open trials I can remember. It should be an exciting competition. There are no heavy favorites.”

The women’s three-meter final will be Wednesday evening; men’s three-meter final Thursday evening; women’s platform final Saturday and men’s platform final Sunday. Two divers from each event will qualify for the Olympics. Those divers will also be evaluated and then paired for diving’s new Olympic discipline, synchronized diving.