THE SEOUL GAMES / DAY 9 : Women’s Springboard Diving : Gao, Li Finish 1-2; Bronze to McCormick

Kelly McCormick, who won a silver medal on the springboard at the 1984 Olympic Games, came back in these 1988 Olympic Games to try for the gold at the age of 28.

But the gold went to Gao Min, a little Chinese woman with a nervous smile and a flawless style, an 18-year-old who ranks as the best in the world on the 3-meter board. And the silver went to Li Qing, Gao’s 15-year-old teammate.

McCormick won a close battle with Irina Lachko of the Soviet Union for the bronze.

Going from silver in ’84 to bronze in ’88 is not necessarily a step backward, though. The Chinese and the Soviets didn’t compete in ’84.

Gao, the 2-time World Cup champion, earned the gold with a total of 580.23 points Sunday afternoon at the Chamshill Indoor Pool. Li scored 534.33.

McCormick needed to beat Lachko on her last dive to move up from fourth. She needed to make up half a point. McCormick scored 8s on her reverse 1 1/2 somersault with 2 1/2 twists, a dive with a difficulty level of 2.9.

McCormick finished with 533.19 points. Lachko scored mostly 7.5s on her inward 2 1/2 somersault in tuck position and finished with 526.65.

“I feel good about winning a medal,” said McCormick, who grew up in Southern California but who lives in Columbus, Ohio, where she trains with Vince Panzano, her diving coach at Ohio State. “I’m doing harder dives and I feel like I’m doing them near my potential.”

However, McCormick indicated that this may be her last competition.

“This is probably the end of the line,” she said. “I don’t think my nerves can take it.”

Wendy Lucero of Denver fell a little bit shorter and finished sixth with 498.81 points.

But Kelly’s mother, Pat McCormick, herself the winner of four Olympic gold medals, was saying that medals aren’t the only rewards for Olympic competition.

“These girls dare to dream,” she said. “They work so hard. They put themselves on the line. They do it.”

Pat was fairly bursting with pride Sunday afternoon and overwhelmingly relieved that she’ll be able to sleep, now that it’s over. As always, Pat whistled their private whistle before every one of Kelly’s dives. It’s her way of letting Kelly know she’s there and watching.

Pat won the gold on both the springboard and the platform in the 1952 and 1956 Olympic Games but said Sunday that there is no comparison between the dives that she did then and the dives that Kelly is doing now. “Kelly is so much stronger and has so much more agility,” Pat said.

Kelly was also doing a world of good for international relations.

Kelly listened to the translation of her young opponent explaining that her strategy was to do a list of simple dives, but to do them well. The translator spoke into the microphone in front of Gao: “I thought that if I could do them well, I could probably get a medal. So I just went ahead and did it.”

Kelly gave Gao a smile, a nod of approval and a wink, all at once. And when attention shifted to another questioner, Kelly gave Gao a U.S. Diving pin, too.

Gao smiled some more. She smiled throughout the diving competition, bowing after every dive.

“I did feel nervous for the competition,” she said. “When I feel nervous, I just smile.”

Gao is the only woman to have scored more than 600 points on the springboard, having piled up 614.07 points at the 1988 Canada’s Cup. But whether she will be competing, like Kelly, when she’s 28 is doubtful. It’s not even likely that she’ll still be competing in 1992.