Synchronized diving makes Olympic debut

By TERRYJONES -- Edmonton Sun
 SYDNEY -- Vancouver Girl Costs Edmonton Girl Medal.

 If you ever wanted to take this sport seriously, you could get a headline like that.

 But whoa.

 This is synchronized diving.

 It's a joke. Joke and choke don't go together.

 Winning a back-door bronze in trampoline is one thing. But synchro diving? That would be one you'd want to throw back.

 As it was, Edmonton's Erin Bulmer and Vancouver's Blythe Hartley went from eighth after one dive to seventh after the second and third dives to sixth after the fourth dive and fifth after the fifth and final dive.

 The event had eight teams.

 It took 56 minutes.

 And there were 14,000 fans in the stands.

 What was wrong with that picture?

 The thing about synchro diving is that the competitors don't spend their lives trying to prepare for this Olympic moment. They spend from June to now. You first have to make the Olympic team. Then they introduce you to each other and inform you that you're in another event.

 "This is the first time we've had an event to warm up for our main events,'' said Canadian diving coach Mitch Geller of the practice with crowds and medals.

 "Blythe was a little nervous starting out. Erin dove sensational.''

 Bulmer said they did take it seriously.

 "A medal was there,'' she said. "It's a little disappointing. But I feel really good with how my dives went down and I think it was great to compete in front of a crowd like this and get used to the enviroment before we move on to the three-metre,'' she said of the real diving.

 First performed internationally at the World Cup in 1995, synchro diving made its Olympic debut here.

 At first glance it has the look of one of those "lemme see, how do we get four more medals in diving'' type of inventions. Next: mixed scynchro diving? Maybe add music? Some sequins?

 There are both three-metre and 10-metre synchro diving events. In each event the divers perform five dives.

 Half the judges are assigned to judge the technical perfection of the dive and half to evaluate the synchronicity of the dive. Kinda like rodeo with half the judges marking the rider and the other half the bull.

 Hmmmmm. Synchro bull riding. Somebody call the Calgary Stampede.