U.S. Diving Outdoor Championships : Louganis and Clark Win 10-Meter Platform Titles

Greg Louganis earned his second gold medal of the U.S. Diving Outdoor Championships Saturday, winning the 10-meter platform competition.

It was the 43rd national title for Louganis, 27, of Boca Raton, Fla. He won the three-meter springboard competition Friday after finishing second in the one-meter springboard Thursday.

Louganis, who scored 657.12 points in the 10-meter, will be defending his title in that event and in the three-meter at the Pan American Games, starting next weekend in Indianapolis.

“It’s nice to know that you have it in you to rise to the occasion,” Louganis said.

Defending national 10-meter champion Matt Scoggin, 23, of Great Falls, Va., finished second with 628.41 and also made the U.S. Pan Am team. Kent Ferguson, 24, of Boca Raton was third with 619.71.

In the women’s 10-meter platform, Mary Ellen Clark, 24, of Newton Square, Pa., won her first national title in senior competition.

Clark’s victory ended a streak by Michele Mitchell, who took the silver medal. Both qualified for the U.S. team.

Mitchell, 25, of Boca Raton, led most of the way but failed in her bid for a seventh straight women’s national platform title when she received no points for her next-to-last dive.

She spun out of control midway through a back 1 1/2 somersault with 3 1/2 twists, drawing gasps from the crowd as she flopped into the Frontier Park Pool.

The meet referee declared it a failed dive, which Mitchell said was the first of her career.

“I have no idea what happened in the dive. I just got lost for some reason,” Mitchell said. “When I hit the water, I guess the realization that I might not make the Pan Am team ran through my mind.”

Clark, a Penn State graduate doing postgraduate work at Ohio State, finished with 396.09 points, and Mitchell had 386.46. Karen LaFace, 21, of Pittsburgh, Pa., was third with 384.90.

Clark was the 12th qualifier from among 37 divers in the platform preliminary competition going into the eight-dive final round.

“I was 12th in prelims and I had nothing to lose--everything to gain,” she said. “I was having fun.”