David Boudia (Noblesville, Ind./West Lafayette, Ind.) appears poised to make his third Olympic team. He and Steele Johnson (Carmel, Ind./West Lafayette, Ind.) lead the men’s synchronized 10-meter field with 835.56 points after Sunday’s men’s synchronized 10-meter preliminaries and semifinals at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Diving.
Boudia and Johnson will head into Thursday’s finals leading by 124.98 points, with Ryan Hawkins (Charlotte, N.C./Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) and Toby Stanley (Indianapolis, Ind./Durham, N.C.) in second place at 710.58 points. Zach Cooper (Greenwood, Ind.) and Max Showalter (Oak Park, Ill./West Lafayette, Ind.) are in third with 698.46 points. Scores are cumulative over three lists of dives in the preliminaries, semifinals and finals.
Although they have a significant lead, the duo knows there is room for improvement. They had four dives score more than 80 points, including a reverse 3 ½ tuck that earned 90.78 points in the semis, but they missed their front 4 ½ tuck for 71.04 and 68.82 points in the preliminaries and semifinals. Their back 2 ½ with 2 ½ twists earned 71.28 points in the semifinals.
“Steele was rock solid (in the semis); I think he would say his last dive he wishes he would’ve done a little better. I was the extremely weak link in this competition. I missed my last two dives terribly and those are the kind of dives that you don’t expect to do that,” Boudia said. “At the end of the day this is a semifinal, it is a stepping stone and you learn from these competitions. And hopefully you can grab some little snippet of what went wrong and go onto finals.”
While Boudia is looking to qualify for his third Olympics, Johnson is aiming for his first. The now-20-year-old Johnson watched Boudia from the stands in 2008 when the trials were last held in Indianapolis.
“I think it’s super exciting to be back home at the Nat in Indianapolis competing in front of my friends and family. I looked out in the stands and saw everyone wearing my shirts. It’s definitely kind of a surreal moment because I was sitting up in the stands in ‘08 watching this guy (Boudia) qualify for his first Olympics, and now to be in the position where if all goes well on Thursday, I’ll be qualifying for my first Olympics. So I have high energy and big motivation to rest well on the off days,” Johnson said.
The U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Diving continue through Sunday, June 26. Monday’s competition features men’s 3-meter and women’s 10-meter individual preliminaries and semifinals.
Courtesy of USA Diving.
