Springboard, Women

Fu Mingxia had won the 1992 platform gold medal but since Barcelona, had added springboard training in an attempt to win the diving double in 1996 for the first time by a woman since Ingrid Krämer in 1960. She had already won the platform in Atlanta, so she needed this for the double. Her biggest challenge was expected to come from her teammate, Tan Shuping, the 1994 World Champion. But Tan almost belly-flopped her third dive in qualifying, and when her last dive was also done poorly, she had placed 23rd and did not even make the semis.

Russian Vera Ilyina led the qualifiers and after the semi-finals, with Fu only in fourth place. But Fu’s DD on her final dives enabled her to move ahead and win the diving double. Ilyina dove terribly in the final round, with only the 10th best final round scores, dropping down to seventh place overall. The silver medal went to Irina Lashko, which she had also won in 1992. The bronze medal went to Canada’s Annie Pelletier, who was third in the event at the 1994 Worlds, won both springboards (1- and 3-metre) at the 1994 Commonwealth Games, and won the springboard at the 1995 Pan American Games. This shutout the Americans from the podium for the second consecutive Olympics, after they had dominated the sport through 1984.

Lashko was good at finishing second in major internationals on springboard. She did so at the 1990 Goodwill Games, the 1991 World Championships, the 1992 and 1996 Olympics and the 1987, 1989, and 1993World Cups. She could be excused slightly in Atlanta, however, as she only returned to diving in 1995 after giving birth to a daughter in 1994.