Even superstitions have their place at these Olympic Games. The first time Scott Donie took his Walkman up onto the platform to listen to music, while he waited before dives, was in the finals of the Olympic trials in Indianapolis.
”No one knew about it there because there`s a room behind the 10-meter where you can sit and listen,” Donie said. ”Since that was (when I made) the Olympic team, I decided to stay with it.”
Donie, 23, of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., took his Walkman up with him on his first dive and left it there to use between each of the seven dives in Sunday`s men`s platform preliminaries.
”Whatever works any given day is what I`ll go with it,” said Donie, the top U.S. qualifier in fourth place for Tuesday`s final. ”I am very superstitious. The reason I did it was to stay relaxed and to block out the scores of other divers.”
Said Donie`s coach, Ron O`Brien: ”I don`t think I`ve ever seen a diver take a Walkman up on the platform like that, but that`s the way he practiced, and there`s no rule against it. He wanted to do everything exactly the same as he did in practice, so if it works for him, fine.
”He was in a great frame of mind, relaxed, looked confident and dove very well. A lot of people read between dives. Every diver has a pre-dive routine they go through the same way every time. It`s the only way in our sport that you can develop any kind of rhythm and routine in what you do. If you do everything the same it helps.”
Donie was trying to relax and make the finals. During the optional dives, he listened to the Doors` ”Riders on the Storm,” he said, ”just because it was a real soothing, relaxing song.”
For the required dives, it was the Grateful Dead`s ”Doing That Rag.”
”You`re never too young for great music,” Donie said. ”Whatever tapes work for me. I had those songs playing in practice, and I had a good practice, so I went with that. If I have a bad practice with a different song tomorrow, I won`t use that song. I just make it up as I go along.
”I`m just glad to get through prelims. With the format they have now, prelims is the most difficult part of this meet. Seven dives, and if you miss one you can be out of it. There`s a lot more pressure than a regular list.”
Donie said he has tried to duplicate his U.S. pre-meet routine.
”I try and do what I do when I`m home, like going to bed at the same time, eating the same types of food, keeping the same routines,” he said.
”That`s my whole Olympic game plan. I`m expecting a personal best here. But anything can happen in this sport, as we have seen this past week.
”This is the biggest meet in the world. The pressure is real, but I have a way of dealing with it.”
And that`s music to his ears.
In a close finish that many divers are blaming on the abbreviated preliminary format of seven dives instead of the old format of 10, Matt Scoggin just made it. He got the 12th and final berth. U.S. teammates Kent Ferguson and Karen LaFace, both springboard divers, also had shaky
preliminaries because of the abbreviated Olympic format.
”There is just no room for error with a short list,” said Scoggin, who made up a nine-point deficit with an 80-point back twister on his final dive. ”The only time I panicked was when I did my back 3 1/2 in the sixth round. I thought I was history. I was 15th at the time. I was beyond panic; I was defeated.”
In Monday`s women`s three-meter springboard final, Julie Ovenhouse, 23, of Howell, Mich., and LaFace, 26, of the Ft. Lauderdale, are in contention for a medal. China`s Gao Min and the Unified Team`s Irina Lashko will challenge them for the gold. Argentina`s Veronica Ribot-Canales, 30, also is a medal contender.
