Mission Viejo Diving : Louganis Regains Winning Form : Breezes to Victories in Springboard, Platform Competition

Any time Greg Louganis falters, it is news.

So there wasn’t very much news Sunday, as Louganis won the three-meter springboard and the 10-meter platform events of the McDonald’s Cup III in front of 500 at the Marguerite Recreation Center in Mission Viejo.

During the weekend-long meet, Louganis answered question after question about a meet last month in which he was beaten on the three-meter springboard for the first time since 1981. So did Mark Bradshaw, the diver who beat him.

But Sunday, Louganis--the 1984 Olympic double gold-medal winner--put any suspicions about his diving to rest. In the springboard event, he scored 689.20 points to defeat his nearest competitor--Bradshaw--by 30 points.

On the platform, he scored 690.65, beating second-place Bruce Kimball, the 1984 Olympic silver medalist, by almost 60 points. A reverse 1 1/2 somersault with 3 1/2 twists that was slightly off earned him only 7s and probably prevented him from hitting the 700-point mark.

He received scores of 9 or more (not including the highest and lowest scores, which are not counted) on seven of his nine other dives and earned his highest score--89.10--for his ninth dive, a back 2 1/2-somersault tuck with a difficulty rating of 3.5, the highest possible.

J.D. McGregor--who continued training at Mission Viejo when Louganis and the coterie of world-class divers who had long trained there moved to Boca Raton, Fla., in 1985--finished third with 557.70 points.

The difference between Louganis’ meet this weekend and the one last month?

“I trained,” Louganis said. “The training always pays off. I knew that before the last meet.”

Louganis, who had been kept busy by promotional appearances, trained seriously for only a week before last month’s meet. He has been working since.

“Things are falling into place,” he said.

Louganis, like the other divers, is preparing for the U.S. Indoor championships next month in Baton Rouge, La. Louganis plans to stay with the same list of dives, but between now and the indoor championships will work on his reverse takeoffs to alleviate the trouble he had on the reverse 1 1/2 somersault with 3 1/2 twists Sunday.

Other divers are in the midst of adding or changing dives in their repertoire, trying to arrive at their best list for the coming season and the beginning of the push toward the 1988 Olympics. The meet this weekend, a match-play event that requires more diving than other formats, provides an intense, pressure-filled test for new dives.

Kelly McCormick, the 1984 Olympic springboard silver medalist and the daughter of two-time Olympic gold-medal winner Pat McCormick, won the women’s springboard competition, using four new dives.

She has replaced a 2 1/2-somersault tuck with a 3 1/2-somersault tuck, a dive with a 2.8 degree of difficulty. On Sunday, it gave her a big boost toward first place, as she earned three 8.5s for it, for 71.40 total points.

She is also using two dives--a reverse and a back 2 1/2-somersault pike that no U.S. women perform on the springboard other than herself and Megan Neyer. Neyer finished second Sunday, by eight points.

The dives aren’t yet getting the women big scores--McCormick earned only 6s and 7s on the back dive, and 4s and 5s on the reverse, and Neyer scored mostly 6s on both--but the degree of difficulty (3.0) bolsters the scores and, more important, are in preparation for the Olympics.

“We’re the only ones in the U.S. doing them, but others in the world are, especially the Chinese,” McCormick said. “I think in ’88 you’re going to need to hit them. . . . I’m going to get it.”

McCormick even performs the reverse 2 1/2-somersault pike as her final dive.

“I put it at the end to put pressure on myself,” she said. “Now’s the time to experiment.”

Michele Mitchell, the 1984 Olympic platform silver medalist, won the women’s platform event, defeating second-place Wendy Wyland, who won the 1984 bronze, by 35 points.

Mitchell also is using new dives. Hers aren’t so much to bolster scores, though, as to extend her career.