Springboard, Women

Micki King had been leading this event at Ciudad de México through eight dives, but hit the board on her ninth dive, fracturing her forearm. Though she completed her last dive, she fell out of the medals. Back at the Olympics in 1972 King trailed Sweden’s Ulrika Knape in the qualifying. But she took the lead on her first dive of the finals and held on to win the gold medal, finishing with a final dive of a reverse 1½ layout with 1½ twists, the same dive on which she had hit her arm in 1968.

Knape would come through in a few days and win gold on the platform, and in 1976, added a platform silver to her sideboard. In between the two Olympics she won the inaugural World Championships on platform in 1973, and added a bronze in the Worlds in 1975. King retired after München, serving for many years as the diving coach at the US Air Force Academy, retiring as a colonel in 1992. America’s Cynthia Potter, later a renowned diving announcer on television in the USA, was expected to contend for a medal, but had struck her foot on the board in training the day before the event started and struggled with the pain throughout, eventually placing 7th.