U.S. diving team expects to reach its old heights again

U.S. diving team expects to reach its old heights again

It is known that the American basketball team is called the "Dream Team," but only few knows that the U.S. diving team was also regarded as the "Dream Team" decades ago.

The United States has won the most diving golds in Olympic Games, 47 golds in all since 1904 St. Louis Olympic Games, while China only has 20, 43 percent of the Olympic diving medals. So till now the U.S. is still the biggest winner in the Olympic diving competitions.

However, in the past four Olympics, the U.S. divers have lost their dominance which used to be showed by Greg Louganis in the 1980s.

Louganis bagged all four men's gold medals in the 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games. Since then, the U.S. divers have won only one gold by Laura Wilkinson in the women's 10 meters platform in Sydney.

Four years ago in Athens, they failed to win any medals, which was quite astonishing at that time. In this Olympics in Beijing, the Americans strongly hope they could reach their old heights again.

"We didn't do a good job in 2004," said Chen Wenbo, head coach of the American diving team here on Monday. "But after that the whole country of America put things together and we really had some good results in the past four years, especially in the World Cup in 2006 and 2008. I believe that we will make a breakthrough this year and we will win a medal here in Beijing."

In World Cup 2006, the American diving team won three silvers and two bronzes, and in World Cup 2008 in the Water Cube, they finished with two bronzes. In the 2007 Melbourne World Championships, young divers David Boudia and Thomas Finchum won a bronze in the men's 10m synchronized event.

The U.S. diving team in the Beijing Olympics is led by Wilkinson and Troy Dumais, who is competing in his third Olympics. Dumais had three sixth-place finishes and a fourth in two Olympics.

Wilkinson, who finished fifth in Athens, is back for her last Olympics and wants a perfect curtain calls.

"This is a whole new Olympics and we don't know what is going to happen," Wilkinson said. "I still have hope and I still think I have a medal chance. If I put all my dives together at the right time, I have a chance for gold. That would be a great ending, to end on a high note like that."

Dumais was also quite confident towards the team: "It's one of the best teams I've ever seen. We are a tightly bond team. We learned from our failure four years ago, and this time we are different and much stronger."