Diver’s Olympic Dream Persists

Kim Stanfield is chasing a childhood dream: to compete in the Olympic Games. But she is following a far different path than the one she first mapped out for herself.

At the age of 7, Stanfield was a budding gymnast. Driven by her love for the sport, she set her sights on the Olympics.

“I wanted to compete with the best athletes in the world,” she said.

In her early teens, however, she began growing--a startling six inches in one year. Suddenly she was too tall to be a contender. She didn’t abandon her Olympic dream, though. Instead, at age 16, she switched to diving.

“I was a gymnast so figured I could dive,” said Stanfield, now 24, of Huntington Beach. “It came really easy because of my gymnastics background.”

Despite her late start in her new sport, she competed in high school and community college, doing well enough to earn a full diving scholarship to Cal State Bakersfield. There, she took NCAA titles in one-meter and three-meter springboard competition and was an All-American.

Then came another setback. In early 1994, during warmups for a competition in Australia, she injured her back and was out of commission for six months. Still, she refused to quit. After graduating from college in June 1994, she began training again.

In January this year, her diligence was rewarded. She won the 10-meter platform event at the All-American Diving Championships in Texas, beating a 1992 Olympian and a national champion. That victory, Stanfield said, “gave me the confidence that I can do it.”

She works six days a week, six hours a day with Andy Kwan, a 1984 Olympic diver. Another of her coaches, Debby McCormick, said Stanfield is highly motivated and talented.

“She’s had a very frustrating road,” McCormick said. “But she’s much stronger than she has ever been.”

In early April, Stanfield will compete in a qualifying meet in Mission Viejo to select four divers for the national championships later that month in Ohio. From that field, the top eight will be invited to Olympic trials in June.

McCormick concedes that Stanfield faces long odds even if she makes it to the trials. Only two women divers will be chosen for the Olympic 10-meter event.

But “she’s believing that she can make it,” the coach said. “She’s got a very good shot to make the top eight. She started off so well this year.”

Stanfield is realistic about her chances. “If I don’t make it, I can say that I gave it my all,” she said. Her personal triumph, she said, is that she has never lost sight of her Olympic goal.

“I did everything possible to try and make it happen,” she said. “If I do make it, then everything will have paid off.”