Heymans flops on tower
Dave Stubbs The gazette
Athens – In the rule book, it’s 5253b. It’s described as a back 2.5 twists, and Emilie Heymans can do it in her sleep.
Yesterday, the weight of the Olympic gold medal in the palm of her hand, St. Lambert’s Heymans leaped, somersaulted, twisted then splashed rudely off the podium in women’s 10-meter platform diving.
No one in the aquatic center could believe it. Not Heymans, and surely not her coaches and teammates who have seen her nail this dive with the dependability of a sunrise.
Perhaps it was a fitting result on yet another bleak day for Canada, save the radiant gold of gymnast Kyle Shefelt
Heymans the defending world champion wound up fourth, 6.63 out of the medals. She trailed champion Australian Chantelle Newbery, runner-up Lao Lishi of China and bronze medalist loudy Tourky, also from Australia.
Pointe Claire’s Myriam Boileau finished seventh, a result that surpassed her team’s expectations, and her own.
“Of course, I wish I could go back up there and do the dive like I’m able to.” Heymans said not long afterward, having regained the composure she lost for a time in the warm-up room. “But you can’t change anything. You just have to look forward to what’s to come.”
Heymans started the five-dive final round in eight place, 15.98 points behind China’s Lao. She moved up to third, slid to fifth, stayed there through the third dive, then vaulted to second with a spectacular reverse 3.5 somersault. That moved her less than five points from the lead heading into the final round.
And then the disaster struck, about one meter above the water. “She just missed it,” Heyman’s coach Michel Larouche said. “ She was ready to go, to fire. We don’t know what happened.”
“It’s a mistake. I feel sorry for Canada, because I know that things haven’t been great for us, and it’s just another opportunity to talk badly about us.”
Heymans was superb in the air, but kicked out of her third somersault too late and “kind of landed on my back,” as she put it. Judges hit her hard, grading her from 4.0 to 6.5 for a total of 58.14 points, the poorest score of the 12 divers in the round.
At the world Championship in Barcelona last summer, Heymans won her title with the same dive, ripping it for a stunning 95.88 points, including a perfect 10 from one judge.
Had she hit that dive here, she would have won gold by 2.5 points.
Heymans slapped the water as the bubbled to the surface, paused as if to absorb the event then shuffled toward the warm-up room just off the deck.
An NBC camera caught her slapping her tight with her chamois on the way, then falling to her knees in the room and pounding the floor with both fists, breaking into tears.
Even while she was still in the water, without knowledge of the finer details on the scoreboard,
Heymans knew the gold had slipped through her fingers and sunk to the bottom of the pool.
“I knew I’d screwed my chance. There’s nothing you can do about it, that’s the worst thing.”
Olympic head coach Mitch Geller was stunned.
“It’s no secret this is a disappointment,” he said. “Emilie is one tough cookie we’d expect when it comes right down too the last dive that she can tough it out with the best of them. It was a minute mistake, with just terrible consequences.”
“I’d rank this with every Olympics I’ve seen. They uncover every fissure in people’s diving.”
Boileau, who recovered from a career-threatening back injury to compete here, put up a personal-best international score of 530.25. She was standing on deck with her own coach, Yihua Li, when the impossible unfolded.
“That’s Emilie’s best dive; she never misses,” said Boileau, of Pointe Claire, who was beaming with her own performance at her first Games. “ For me, doing this is like winning the gold medals”
Heymans has already earned a bronze medal here is the 10-meter synchronized event with Blythe Hartley. She still has the 3-meter springboard event to dive, admittedly not her best event.
“Emilie is like me when something like this happens” Boileau said. “ I’m not worried about her. She’ll want to focus for the 3 meters, to not speak to anyone and just be by her.”
Yesterday, with one dramatic dive, Heymans was all by herself in front of the entire world.
|
