Ruiz and Pichler Finish in Top Two on Platform

Lydia Torres waved the American flag and Mark Ruiz waved his fist. A team effort all the way, this was. Mother helping son, mother celebrating with son.

On Sunday at the King County Aquatic Center, Ruiz won the U.S. Olympic trials on the 10-meter platform. On Thursday night Ruiz, 21, had won the three-meter title by coming from behind on his last dive. Sunday, Ruiz was the leader from the first of six dives until the last one. Either way, front-runner or fast finisher, Ruiz has established himself as the United States’ best hope of winning a diving medal or two at the Sydney Games.

Ruiz scored 1,154.97 points and was given one perfect 10 on his final dive, a triumphant way to announce himself as a new champion. Taking the second men’s platform Olympic berth with 1,149.75 points was 31-year-old David Pichler of Butler, Pa.

For Ruiz, it was another step in a career that began with a passion for the sport.

Here’s how badly Ruiz has always wanted to dive.

When he was 6 years old, Ruiz would jump out of trees outside his home in Toa Alta, Puerto Rico. Ruiz didn’t always have access to a diving board, but he could always find a tree. Maybe Ruiz couldn’t land headfirst but he could do a somersault or two and land on his feet.

Here’s how badly Torres wanted her son to be able to dive.

Eight years ago, after the club 45 minutes from Toa Alta closed, Torres gave up her hairstyling business and moved with Ruiz to Orlando, Fla. They lived in a tiny apartment. Ruiz went to school without being able to speak English. But he didn’t need English to land in the pool without making a splash.

Torres and Ruiz, whose father died two years ago in Puerto Rico, came to Orlando because Ruiz had liked the pool and coaches at Team Orlando Diving when he had competed there once.

Jay Lerew, Ruiz’s coach, says the first time he saw Ruiz, Ruiz was 12 and had just moved to Orlando.

“He was this little [one] who kept cutting in line,” Lerew said. “All the other kids would be lined up and Mark was so eager to keep diving that he’d just run to the front of the line. All the other kids were mad, but Mark didn’t speak English and no one could say anything to him.

“What I saw was a kid who wanted to dive so badly that nothing mattered to him.”

Sometimes, Lerew said the Orlando coaches would have to chip in and help Ruiz pay travel expenses. Sometimes the club would give Ruiz and his mother a break on lesson fees and pool time. Instead of running her own business, Torres worked in other beauty salons for little money.

“Everything that’s happened,” Ruiz said, “it is thanks to my mother.

What she’s done for me, I can never say ‘thank you’ enough.”

Pichler’s finish Sunday was equally emotional. He competed in Atlanta in 1996 on the three-meter and finished sixth. When Pichler, who was working full time as an insurance agent, failed to qualify for the U.S. World Championship team, he needed to make a choice. Diving or career.

He chose diving and, in an unexpected way, Pichler’s decision paid off. On Thursday Pichler left the King County Aquatic Center nearly in tears.

He had been the leader on the three-meter going into the final dive, a dive Pichler missed so badly that he dropped into fourth. “In a funny way that helped me,” Pichler said. “It made me realize that it was not the end of the world if I didn’t make the Olympic team. I had come to peace with that.”

Sunday, when Pichler climbed the stairs to the top of the 10-meter platform, he knew again that a missed dive might cost him an Olympic spot. Within striking distance was Rio Ramirez, a Cuban-born, newly certified U.S. citizen who had brought the crowd to its feet by scoring 10s on two dives and who brought the crowd to sympathetic gasps when he didn’t hit a 4 1/2-twist dive and dropped behind Pichler.

Ramirez was going to need a waiver from Cuba to be able to represent the U.S. had he qualified. It was a fight this 26-year-old who hasn’t seen his parents since defecting seven years ago, wanted to face very much.

But as Pichler was getting ready for his final dive Ruiz, who had jumped from fourth place to first on his final dive Thursday, turned to Pichler and said, “Let’s gets 10s.”

There was no 10 for Pichler but enough 8s and 9s to clinch his second Olympic trip.

Notes

Justin Dumais of Ventura finished fifth and his brother, Troy, who earned the second spot on the three-meter team, finished sixth. Tyce Routson, an El Toro High graduate who now lives in Miami, finished ninth. . . . Ruiz’s coach, Jay Lerew, was named coach of the U.S. Olympic team.