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Last-minute heroics for Ruiz, Dumais
Posted: Friday June 23, 2000 05:12 PM
FEDERAL WAY, Wash. -- In the most exciting of conclusions, Mark Ruiz and Troy Dumais made the Olympic team Thursday night in men's three-meter springboard. Both Ruiz (1130.67 total points) and Dumais (1120.32) overtook '96 Olympian David Pichler (1115.61) on their final dives to earn the two Olympic berths. The Mark Ruiz rally cap would be a good seller around diving circles. Ruiz was 47 points out of an Olympic spot and 53 points behind leader Pichler after fudging his second dive, a back 2 1/2 pike, for 6s. "I don't know why I make everything so interesting," Ruiz said after the event. "Why can't I just take the lead and keep it?" Ruiz's recent rallies have been remarkable. At the spring nationals in Minneapolis, Ruiz came from seventh place to win both the three-meter and 10-meter events, edging Pichler by a point on the final springboard dive of the competition, a reverse 3 1/2 with a half twist in the tuck position, the same dive he nailed at the end of trials for scores that ranged between 9.0 and 10.0, giving him 98.70 points on his last dive. Ruiz also used the dive to come from fourth place with one round remaining to win the three-meter event at the '99 Pan-Am Games in Winnipeg, edging Mexico's Fernando Platas by less than a point. "That's been a great dive for me," Ruiz said a half-hour after displaying his signature fist pump as he bobbed to the surface after the dive. "It's saved me time and time again. That's what having everything on the line will do to you." Strength in numbersThe diving Dumaises have always had the advantage of numbers at competitions. At the '97 junior nationals a record five Dumais siblings competed for the California-based Trojan Dive Club. Ruiz and Dumais finished 1-2 at that meet, just as they did Thursday night. Justin Dumais (21) placed 11th here, as Brice (19) Leanne (15) and Dwight (14) watched from the stands. They were among 29 Dumais supporters with several things in common: All wore a blue shirt, the team uniform, announcing their allegiance; all, including the Dumais parents, Kathy and Marc, were unaware when they arrived at the Weyerhaeuser Aquatic Center that Troy had been to the hospital twice in the past 18 hours to pass kidney stones that nearly knocked him out of the competition; and all owed their itineraries, from flights to hotel reservations to event tickets, to Kathy's brother, Bill Bek. A year ago Bek sent out 40 invitations to friends and family hoping they'd be able to block out time to attend the trials. "It was a year-long project," Bek said. "I went on the Internet, found travel sites, discounts, booked everyone in the same hotel. Some people were short on cash. It was hard work." Another disaster for PichlerPichler's nightmarish encounters with Olympic trials continued when he flubbed his final dive, a reverse 3 1/2 tuck, and fell from first place to fourth. Pichler's scores on the dive ranged between 4.0 and 6.0. Not one of the 35 numbers awarded for his previous five dives was below a 7.0. Pichler had a 13-point lead over second-place Troy Dumais and a 21-point margin over Kevin McMahon before his last attempt. In 1992 Pichler came down with a nasty case of the flu on the eve of the trials and slipped to seventh place in the platform final. In '96 he made the team on platform (and placed sixth at the Atlanta Olympics), but soon after the trials found himself embroiled in a soap opera with his live-in companion, Steven Guiffre, and Ron O'Brien, the Olympic coach. O'Brien obtained a restraining order one week before the trials prohibiting Guiffre from coming within 50 feet of him and his family after Guiffre allegedly threatened O'Brien's son Tim and other members of the Fort Lauderdale Diving Team. After Wednesday's collapse, Pichler sat dazed against a wall and left it to Patrick Jeffrey, his coach and fellow '96 platform Olympian, to give a statement on his behalf, in which he predicted that Pichler would make the Olympic team on the platform. Sports Illustrated writer-reporter Brian Cazeneuve, the magazine's Olympics expert, is in Washington covering the diving trials. He will file reports after each of the finals. Click here to send a question to his Sydney 2000 Mailbag.
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