By TERRY JONES -- Edmonton Sun
 SYDNEY -- Four years is a long time to wait for a do-over. And now you have to think about four more to do over your do over?

 Eryn Bulmer bombed at the Atlanta Olympics. Rated as a medal possibility, she bombed in the qualifying and wasn't around for the semi-finals or final.

 She finished 21st.

 It was bombs away again here yesterday.

 The Edmonton diver totally messed up her best two dives. Again she won't be around for the semi-final or the final. She finished 20th.

 "I missed my best dive,'' she said, tears filling her eyes as she struggled to talk about it in the mixed zone.

 "I felt fine. I felt really good. Maybe too good.''

 NOT A GAME OF INCHES

 Diving isn't a game of inches. It's a game of degrees. And Bulmer was out about 15 degrees on her third and fourth dives.

 She was ranked fourth going into the third dive. She was ranked 38th coming out of it.

 "It's the wrong time to have that dive. It's the Olympics. You can't do that,'' she said of her double disasters on the double back 2 1/2 pike and the reverse 2 1/2 pike which left her with double disasters at the Olympics.

 Does she stay around four more years to get it right?

 "It's the wrong time to ask that,'' she said as tears ran down her face.

 Bulmer believed, really believed, she had learned her Olympic lessons.

 "Whoever can ignore the distractions the best is going to perform the best.,'' she said three days before the Olympics began. "I've learned how to compete under pressure and how to block those things out.''

 It was supposedly a more mature Erin Bulmer at the Olympics this year, not the overwhelmed young girl who took the trip to Atlanta.

 Bulmer, a 20-year-old in her first Olympics, finished a disastrous 21st in Atlanta. And for the next couple of years she heard the raps. Can't handle the pressure. Can't handle the crowds. Can't control her emotions. Can't manufacture the big dive when it matters most.

 She thought she had rid herself of the raps when she won the gold at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur and reconfirmed everything when she had to dig down and deliver a last dive to win gold at the Winnipeg Pan-Ams.

 Canada's female aquatics athlete of the year in 1997 and 1998 has brought all those raps back again with what happened here.

 "It's Eryn's medal if she wants it or it's Eryn's to give away if that's the way it goes,'' said national coach Mitch Geller before the Olympics "If you look at the top three, she's as good as anybody out there in the world.''

 CAN NEVER PREDICT

 He didn't know what to say.

 "I don't know what happened,'' he said. "I know you can never predict what will happen in diving.

 "Obviously she's very upset. This is a very, very big disappointment. It's a disastrous result for her.

 "In this sport you have to be stable. In qualifying, you don't try to smoke any dives. You want to be good, not great. Maybe she forgot about that a bit,'' said Geller.

 "It's really all about a fraction of a second. That's the difference between 70 degrees and 90 degrees. It goes by in a split second. She's on her stomach.

 "When Erin does those dives she does them as well or better than anybody in the world.

 "Maybe the adrenalin got her again. That's what happened in Atlanta. I thought Erin was our best medal possibility for the whole Games.''