No Break in Wilkinson’s Form as She Takes Lead

The timing was bad, no question.

Laura Wilkinson broke her right foot in three places in March, but already was a favorite to make the U.S. Olympic 10-meter platform diving team by winning the 1998 and 1999 U.S. Summer Nationals.

“I didn’t have a good feeling,” Wilkinson, a University of Texas student, said. “I kind of wondered if my dreams were over.”

But after the nine-dive roster of optionals and required dives Friday night, Wilkinson was in first place at the 2000 U.S. Olympic trials.

With 496.50 points, Wilkinson leads 20-year-old Sara Reiling of St. Paul, Minn., who is in second with 494.67 points. The top two divers after today’s finals qualify for the Olympic team. Third after the semifinals is Kathy Pesek, 23, who won the 2000 U.S. National Indoor title two months ago but has been suffering from vertigo. Pesek has 487.11 points and just behind her in fourth place is Ashley Culpepper of Austin, Texas, with 480.12 points.

Jenny Keim, who won the 3-meter competition Wednesday night to earn an Olympic berth, is in sixth place with 459.81 points. Keim, 22, is diving with a partially torn biceps muscle.

Mission Viejo’s Erica Sorgi, 17, who had been expected to challenge for two Olympic spots, barely made the finals, finishing in 12th place with 448.74 points. Sorgi finished 12th in the 3-meter finals.

Kristen Marquis, a Santa Margarita High graduate from San Juan Capistrano, finished 17th after dealing with the pain from an abscessed tooth. “This was my first Olympic trials,” Marquis said, “and it didn’t go exactly how I planned but considering everything I’m pleased with just diving.”

About four months ago Wilkinson wasn’t sure she’d be diving at all this year.

The morning after she broke her foot, Wilkinson, already awake and brooding, heard a knock on her door before dawn. It was her coach, Ken Armstrong. Armstrong paced and scowled, doing “my best Bobby Knight routine. I got in Laura’s face, I asked her if she was ready to give up, I told her she couldn’t quit now.” Armstrong did not put his hands around Armstrong’s neck, but his words made an impression.

“I saw I had three options,” Wilkinson, 22, said. “I could just quit. I could wait and see. Or I could believe in my heart that I would be ready for trials. I chose to believe option three.”

Wilkinson had to stay off the foot for a week. She wore a hard cast for three weeks, then wore a walking cast for six more weeks. Wilkinson’s apartment in The Woodlands, Texas, is across the street from the pool.

“I would hop over every day and do whatever land training I could do,” she said. “I never, ever gave up hope that I’d be here. Not once.”

Last summer Wilkinson finished second in the 3-meter at nationals to go with her first in platform. The broken foot forced Wilkinson to stick to platform here.

She drew first position among the 17 divers who competed five high difficulty optional dives and four precision required dives Friday, scored big on her very first dive, an armstand double somersault with a twist, and never ranked lower than third all evening.

Armstrong, whose wife, Patty, is 32, the mother of a 3-year-old and also the oldest competitor here, gave Wilkinson a big hug at the end and then kissed his wife, who is ninth.

Wilkinson has to wear a kayaking bootie on the foot as she climbs up to the top of the tower. She will need surgery on the foot whenever her season ends. Wilkinson hopes that won’t be until October, after the Olympics.

OTHER TRIALS

Three riders who have never been on an Olympic team held the top three spots after the third round of the U.S. show jumping trials at Gladstone, N.J.

The three are Margie Goldstein-Engle, of Wellington, Fla., Alison Firestone, of Upperville, Va., and Raymond Texel, of Beverly Hills.

Goldstein-Engle had two clean rounds on Hidden Creek’s Perin to her clean round on Wednesday.

She’s followed closely by Firestone on Jox with 4.25 faults and Texel on Pershing with 4.5 faults. Five riders are tied for fourth with 8 faults.

*

Jean Foster won the women’s three-position at the USA Shooting National Championships and Final Olympic Team Selection match at Wolf Creek Trap and Shooting Range in Atlanta.

Totals from this event are combined with the results from the spring trials to determine the U.S. team. Joining Foster on the women’s three-position team are Thrine Kane and Melissa Mulloy.

Jason Parker won the men’s air rifle title to clinch an Olympic team spot, and he will be joined by Ken Johnson.

After two of three days in men’s trap, Matthew Ruchong and 1996 bronze medalist Lance Bade are tied for first. Bade and Josh Lakatos of Pasadena, the silver medalist in 1996, remained tied for first overall. The top two after today’s final round go to Sydney.

*

Matt Ghaffari kept his Olympic hopes alive by winning the 286-pound division of the Greco-Roman challenge tournament in the U.S. wrestling trials at Dallas.

The 38-year-old wrestler from Avon Lake, Ohio, rallied from a 1-0 second-round deficit at Reunion Arena for a 3-1 victory over Dremiel Byers of the U.S. Army.

Ghaffari, trying to qualify for his third straight Olympics, will meet reigning U.S. champion Rulon Gardner today in a best-of-three match to determine who will advance to the Olympics.

Eric Akin of Madison, Wis., opened the freestyle challenge finals with a 7-6 victory over Stephen Abas of Fresno, in the 119-pound division. Akin will face U.S. champion Sammie Henson in a best-of-three series today.

*

The Associated Press contributed to this story.