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Colwill's Gamble Doesn't Pay Off

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By BILL WARD

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 20, 2008

Brandon's Chris Colwill decided to leave it all in the pool of the Olympic men's 3-meter diving finals Tuesday night in Beijing. He did that by performing a list of six dives that, when combined, was the highest degree of difficulty in the competition.

Unfortunately for the Tampa Prep and University of Georgia graduate, the gamble didn't pay off. The list, which included a dive that had the meet's highest degree of difficulty and has been attempted by only one other athlete in the world during the Games, resulted in a 12th-place finish.

Colwill had improved to 11th place before his sixth and final dive, but on his difficult finale - a reverse 21/2 with 21/2 twists- he scored a relatively low mark of 66.30 and wound up back in 12th with a final total of 425.90.

"It could have worked in my favor, but unfortunately it didn't," said Colwill, whose Beijing Olympics are over. "It was a tough field out there. I can do that dive well. I just hesitated today, but I know in my heart I can do it."

China's He Chong was nearly flawless in the finals, scoring four of his six dives over 90 and getting a stunning 100.70 on his sixth, and he won the gold medal with a combined score of 572.90. That was a comfortable 36.25 points ahead of silver medalist Alexandre Despatie of Canada and 42.80 ahead of He's Chinese teammate Qin Kai. The other American in the finals, Troy Dumais, was sixth with 472.50.

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