Platform, Men

Pete Desjardins won the gold medal on the platform, completing the springboard/platform double in Amsterdam, but Egypt’s Farid Simaika was first announced as the champion and the Egyptian national anthem was played, because he had scored the most points – 99.58 to Desjardins’ 98.74. But the rules stated that ordinals were used as the first method of placement ranking, and Desjardins was ranked ahead of Simaika by four of the five judges and had only 6 ordinals to Simaika’s 9. The bronze medal went to American Mickey Galitzen, as the same three men medaled in both diving events in 1928.

Simaika later became a United States’ citizen in March 1942, and joined the US Air Force. A fighter pilot, his plane crashed over Indonesia, and he was never found. Some tales relate that he was beheaded by either the Japanese or local headhunters. Although the plane crashed in September 1943, he was only declared legally dead on 19 December 1945.