Ovenhouse Goes for It, and Misses : Diving: With a chance for a medal, she refuses to play it safe, then makes a big splash. Gao Min wins gold.

The Olympic dream doesn’t always end on the medal stand. It doesn’t always end with teary eyes and embracing parents and flying flags. Sometimes the dream ends with an almost or a why not ?

It was that way late Monday afternoon in the women’s springboard diving at Piscina de Montjuic. Julie Ovenhouse, 23, of Brighton, Mich., stood at the edge of a diving board with her back to the water and prepared to make her own sacrifice worthwhile. She was in fourth place, with one dive left, having dropped from second on her previous dive. She would execute an inward 2 1/2 somersault, and she would win a medal.

Except that she wanted it all just a little too much. She spun in the air and she was still spinning when she hit the water. Her legs flopped over too far and made one of those ugly splashes judges dislike. She dropped to fifth place, far out of the medals and farther, yet, from gold medalist Gao Min of China, who repeated as Olympic champion and has not lost in competition since 1986.

Irina Lachko of the Commonwealth of Independent States won the silver medal, and Brita Baldus of Germany took the bronze.

Ovenhouse decided, standing on the board before that last dive, that she would not lose by playing it safe.

“She went after it, which is what an athlete has to do,” said U.S. men’s diver Kent Ferguson. “Unfortunately, she was just a little too pumped up for it.”

She hit the water aware that the scoreboard would soon illuminate a row of fours and fives--out of 10--and that she would win nothing. But that is not what she thought as she climbed from the water.

“I thought, ‘I’m glad I went for it.’ If I hadn’t gone hard for it, I would have regretted it. . . . “

That is only in keeping with Ovenhouse’s recent history. She has been a member of the U.S. national team since 1989, but never finished higher than fourth in an international meet. Last spring she retired, prepared to get on with life. She took a job investigating insurance claims. But it didn’t last.

Ovenhouse was watching the World University Games last summer when she decided there were dives left in her.

“At first she said she was going to dive a little bit,” said her husband Todd, himself a former college diver. “I knew that wouldn’t last.”

Ovenhouse started horribly and after six dives was in 11th place, among 12 divers. But on Ovenhouse’s seventh and eighth dives, she shot from 11th to second. Before her last dive, she was two points out of third place and five out of second.

And then she missed.

“No regrets,” she said.

Diving Medalists

WOMEN’S SPRINGBOARD

GOLD Gao Min (China)

SILVER Irina Lachko (CIS)

BRONZE Brita Pia Baldus (Germany)