OLYMPIC TRIALS : Scoggin, Donie Make Diving Team

Matt Scoggin scored seven 10s and Scott Donie overtook Pat Evans on Sunday to earn berths on the platform diving team at the U.S. Olympic trials at Indianapolis.

Scoggin and Donie will join Ellen Owen and Mary Ellen Clark on the platform team at the Barcelona Olympics. Julie Ovenhouse, Karen LaFace, Mark Lenzi and Kent Ferguson qualified for the Olympic springboard team.

The average age of this year’s Olympians is 26.3 years, making it the oldest American diving team since records first were kept in the 1920s.

It’s also the first team since 1948 not to include a returning Olympian.

“They’ve all been to big meets,” U.S. Olympic Coach Dick Kimball said. “It doesn’t have the impact it did in the old days when we only had a big meet every four years.”

Scoggin dominated the men’s platform, carrying a 64-point lead into Sunday’s finals. He received five perfect 10s and two 9.5s for an inward 3 1/2 somersault with a 3.2 degree of difficulty on his next-to-last dive.

Scoggin, at 28 the oldest men’s platform diver, made his first Olympic team in three attempts. The Austin, Tex., resident finished 14th at the 1984 trials and fifth at the ’88 trials.

“Everyone knows I’ve had my fair share of very disappointing moments,” Scoggin said. “You put them all together and they were all worth it because of today.”

Scoggin’s sixth dive, a reverse 2 1/2 somersault with a 2.7 degree of difficulty, received two 10s and five 9.5s. He received eight 10s in Saturday’s preliminaries.

“I haven’t had that many 10s in a two-day contest ever,” he said.

Evans, also competing in his third Olympic trials, started off with 10s on three of his first four dives. Donie remained consistent with marks ranging from 8.5s to 9.0s.

Donie, of Houston, overtook Evans on his seventh, and most difficult, dive, a reverse 3 1/2 somersault with a 3.4 degree of difficulty. He received marks ranging from 6.0 to 7.5, good enough for a 3-point lead over Evans.

Evans followed with the same dive, but received seven 3.5s when his legs slapped the water on entry.

Evans and Donie performed more difficult dives than Scoggin, whose highest degree of difficulty was 3.3.

Scoggin stumbled on his fourth dive of the 10-dive program. He received marks ranging from 4.0 to 5.5 for an armstand cut-through reverse 1 1/2 somersault.

“I knew I had to come through in a big way,” Scoggin said. “I’m better at applying pressure so I was happy to be ahead.”

John Pescatore of Ocean City, N.J., and Peter Sharis of Boxford, Mass., won the men’s pair without coxswain competition at the U.S. Olympic Rowing trials at West Windsor Township, N.J., and earned spots on the Olympic team.

The Pescatore-Sharis team, competing for the Vespers Boat Club, completed the course in six minutes, 34.19 seconds to easily beat five other crews. Jerome and Tim Ryan, brothers from Tiburon, Calif., were second in 6:36.74.

Pescatore and Sharis both bring national team experience to the Olympic team.

Pescatore was the stroke for the 1987 gold medal-winning men’s eights crew at the World Championships and for the bronze medal-winning men’s eights at the 1988 Olympics.

Sharis rowed on the only junior men’s eights crew to win a gold medal in 1987, and for the 1989 and 1990 senior men’s eights crews.

Dave McCook, recently recovered from a broken collarbone, and sprinting specialist Laura Charameda won national criterium championships on the cold, final day of the U.S. Cycling Olympic trials and National Championships at Altoona, Pa.

McCook, 22, of Atlantic Beach, Fla., claimed the non-Olympic 45-mile men’s race by three bike lengths in 1 hour 42 minutes 17 seconds. Bobby Julich, 20, of Glenwood Springs, Colo., finished second and Phil Voorhees of Boulder, Colo., was third.

Charameda, of Mountain View, Calif., edged former national criterium titlist Karen Bliss of Quakertown, Pa., in a photo finish to claim the 29.5- mile women’s race in 1:14:39. Linda Brenneman of Mission Viejo was third.