Clark Has a Platform for Olympic Success : Diving: The women’s bronze medalist at Barcelona takes on the challenge of springboard.

Coming out of a spin late and plunging into the water with an unsightly splash is nothing compared to the woes of “Agony Column” correspondents who fill the pages of Cosmopolitan each month.

Mary Ellen Clark devours the column between dives, quickly forgetting an over rotation or unpointed toe as she empathizes with a woman who fears that her sister has a psychotic obsession with an actor she has never met.

The key for Clark, the 1992 Olympic platform bronze medalist, is letting go--she does not allow one disappointing dive to affect the ones that follow.

Clark is so determined to forget the past that her coach, Ron O’Brien, has difficulty pointing out her mistakes during competition. At the U.S. Olympic Festival in San Antonio recently, O’Brien could not shake Clark’s ninth dive, a disastrous reverse 1 1/2 somersault with 2 1/2 twists.

“I didn’t look for the entry, and Ron was bummed,” Clark said. “And yet I went back, took a shower, put my Walkman on and read my magazine. Then I saw Ron and he was still angry. I said, ‘Ron, I’m letting go of that dive.’ And finally, he let it go. Once you miss a dive--it’s over, done with, you have to move on.’ ”

Clark, who will compete today through Sunday in the Phillips 66 National Diving Championships at USC Swim Stadium, took an equally no-nonsense approach to the Olympic Games last summer.

She kept the Olympics in perspective because her father, Gene, underwent heart surgery a few days before she left for Barcelona.

“I saw it as another meet,” Clark said. “I didn’t get caught up in ‘This is the Olympic Games, millions and billions of people are watching me, they’ll hate me if I screw up.’ ”

What Clark didn’t realize was the extent of NBC’s coverage of her. After each of her dives, the cameras zoomed in on the face of her mother, Carolyn. They also showed Gene watching the televised coverage from the family’s Pennsylvania home as his daughter dived with precision and grace.

Her parents reacted to each dive with hysterical joy as Clark edged China’s Zhu Jinghong by 1.35 points for the bronze medal.

But things are not always so happy in the dangerous world of platform diving.

Olympic silver medalist Scott Donie underscored its pitfalls during the Olympic Festival. Thirty seconds into a handstand, he stopped abruptly, returned to his feet, and climbed down the platform. Later, he spoke of the pressure associated with the Olympics and his realization that he didn’t enjoy diving.

“That was really good for him,” Clark said. “He reached a wall. It’s important not to go over that wall. It’s OK to step back.”

Clark, 30, has never reached the wall, and her quest for improvement motivates her to continue training six hours a day. The repetitive process is physically and mentally draining: Climbing the tower, executing the dive, swimming to the side, pulling herself out of the pool.

Clark is not only driven by the tiny flaws she sees on the tapes of her bronze-medal performance, she is expanding her range. At the 1996 U.S. Olympic trials, she hopes to finish in the top two on the three-meter springboard, as well as on the platform, so that she can compete in both events in the Atlanta Games. The one-meter springboard is not contested in the Olympics.

As three-time U.S. platform champion, her Olympic Festival platform victory was expected, but winning the three-meter springboard was an encouraging surprise.

Although Clark has competed on the one-meter and three-meter boards for 22 years, her three-meter Festival title marked her first non-platform victory in 14 years.

“I think what I did sends a message, really, to myself,” Clark said. “It says, ‘You can do this.’ I’ve worked really hard, and it’s nice to know the hard work is paying off.”