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Comeback complete Fu's return netted record-tying and women's recordsPosted: Friday September 29, 2000 8:15 AMUpdated: Thursday November 09, 2000 12:30 PM SYDNEY, Australia (CNNSI.com) - On Thursday, Fu Mingxia proved that after two years of retirement she can still dive, winning her fifth Olympic medal. Burned out after the rigors of training for the Atlanta Olympics four years ago, where she swept the platform and springboard titles, Fu said goodbye to diving. She took up economics management at college, made new friends and put on pounds. But time refreshed her and brought a change of mind. Her college set up a diving club and "friends asked me: 'Do you think you can still dive?'" she said. Fu decided to find out. Although she says her first platform dive was scary, the rust came off quicker than expected. Within months, she was somersaulting and twisting once again. She likened it to learning how to bicycle: "The more you ride, the smoother you become. That's the feeling." "In fact, I still really liked diving, I fought for about half a year and then decided to come back," she said.
But the Fu who won the springboard gold Thursday, adding to her silver a few days ago in synchronized diving, is not the same Fu who first wowed the world at age 13 in winning her first Olympic gold at Barcelona in 1992. "Eight years is a long time. I was a child back then," Fu said. "I feel I've grown up. I've attended two more Olympics. But in diving, your competitive streak never changes." Now 22, she's got a boyfriend -- a soccer player for a Beijing club. She's developed a taste for Starbucks' iced coffee, grown her hair and appears to be enjoying diving more than ever. Before Atlanta, the rigors of training for the national team sometimes reduced Fu to tears. But the atmosphere of her college club is far more relaxed. Many of those she dives with are children -- as Fu was when she was spotted by a diving coach at age 10 and brought to Beijing for training from her home in central China. The kids treat Fu as a big sister -- admiration that helped build her confidence as she fought to recapture her form, a friend of Fu's said. The friend recalled seeing Fu line her young teammates up once after practice and clean their ears with cotton buds to prevent infections. Unlike the eight or more hours of daily training Fu endured in the past, she cut back practice to four or five hours in the afternoon -- sometimes to the beat of techno music pumping from a boom box by the pool. Despite her fame, Fu had to make her way through qualifying contests, national championships and pre-Olympic trials to overtake the army of other high-caliber divers in China and win a place on the Olympic team. But far from describing this low-road back as demeaning for a star like herself, she said it "allowed me to shed the mantle of champion and be a normal diver." On Thursday, "standing on the medal podium, I felt that all the roads I've walked since I returned to diving until now were just a small part of my life." Fu joined two Americans, Greg Louganis and Pat McCormick, as the only divers to win four gold medals. With her silver, she's also the first woman to win five diving medals. Louganis, Italy's Klaus Dibiasi and China's Xiong Ni are the only men to accomplish that feat. But for Fu, joining that pantheon was not the goal. After Sydney, she said she's back off to college. "I've never thought of comparing myself to any of those athletes because it wouldn't be too meaningful to me," Fu said. "I'm just an ordinary person who accomplished a miracle." The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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