Troy Dumais showed why he is a two-time Olympian with a commanding performance in the men’s springboard semifinals at the U.S. Olympic Diving Trials in Indianapolis.
After scoring 472.25 points in the prelims, Dumais put together an Olympic caliber list of dives, scoring 535.55 points over the six semifinal dives. “If you go 550 at the Olympics, you are probably going to win,” said Dumais.
While Dumais did not reach that magic 550 mark, he did receive at least one perfect score of 10 on three of his dives.
The achilles heel of his preliminary competition was a reverse 3 ½ somersaults in tuck position. Dumais received scores of 7.5 and 8 in the semifinals, a vast improvement from prelims but still with some room for improvement.
“I still had an error, I didn’t look all the way through the entry,” commented Dumais on the reverse 3 1/2. “It’s a learning process and everyday is different.”
Overall though Dumais was pleased with his performance and credits his coach, 1992 Olympian Matt Scoggin, with helping him prepare for this event and beyond.
“I tend to over think things,” said Dumais. “We trained well for this. It’s nice to have an Olympic coach. Matt (Scoggin) wants what is best for me and it took me a while to see that.”
In second place after the semifinals, Chris Colwill applauded the effort by Dumais. "I would rather have him compete that way,” said Colwill. “It makes me better.”
Colwill did indeed improve his score from the preliminaries by six points, showing the consistency that will be needed to make the Olympic team either from the trials or the selection camp in July.
“I’m quite pleased with how I did tonight,” added Colwill. “The pace (of the competition) was slower than the prelims, so you have to find a another way to deal with it.”
The pace to which Colwill refers, is the break that is taken between each round in the semifinals, but not in the preliminaries. The break, and the change in the competition format, can stress a diver who is used to, and has prepared for a particular routine.
Another outside influence that these divers must condition themselves to is the crowd and the media – television in particular.
“It was intense,” said Colwill. “That kind of crowd and the TV exposure, you have to put yourself away.”
With a 77 point lead, Dumais may have put the contest away with his performance on Thursday, but Colwill will have one more shot at the leader on Friday. He will also use a new dive for the finals – a reverse 2 ½ somersaults with 2 ½ twists. It has a degree of difficulty of 3.9 and only one other diver in the world is using it.
Stay tuned, it should be interesting!
- Troy Dumais (Ventura, Calif.) – 1038.30
- Chris Colwill (Brandon, Fla.) – 961.00
- Jevon Tarantino (Boca Raton, Fla.) – 893.65
- Justin Wilcock (Smithfield, Utah) – 883.20
- Kristian Ipsen (Clayton, Calif.) – 838.70
- Burkley Showe (Columbus, Ohio) – 837.05
- Harrison Jones (Spring, Texas) – 809.70
- Aaron Fleshner (Spring, Texas) – 824.15
- Jonathan Wilcox (Bellevue, Wash.) – 774.75
- Kellen Harkness (Puyallup, Wash.) – 774.40
- Mark Ruiz (Orlando, Fla.) – 742.80
- Terry Horner (Orlando, Fla.) – 688.45
Men's Three-meter Springboard Preliminaries
