hand on Tim’s shoulder and leaned forward until their foreheads touched. “Thank you.”
“So what do you want to do?” Tim asked softly.
“Get out of here,” Isaac said.
Tim smiled. “That we can do.” He gently leaned away from Isaac and stood up. Then he offered Isaac his hand.
Isaac took it and slid off his tool. He gave one last, longing glance at the pint of beer; then he nodded to himself and turned toward Tim. Tim opened his arms for a hug, and Isaac stepped into them and let himself be hugged.
Luke and Katie walked over. “You okay, Flood?” Luke asked.
“Yeah. I’m sorry for freaking out on you before. This day, this whole month, it all kind of hit me and I didn’t handle it well.”
“You still on the wagon?”
“Barely. I ordered the beer but didn’t drink it.”
“That’s what matters. How long you been sober?”
“Eighteen months, two weeks.”
“You got this,” Luke said.
Isaac nodded, a faint smile on his face. Katie reached over and patted his shoulder. Tim took Isaac’s hand, and then they all walked back to the dorm together.
Chapter 25
Day 15
Transcript: Men’s Ten-Meter Platform Final
BELL: We had some exciting preliminary rounds.
HOLLAND: Goes to show, nothing is a given at the Olympics.
BELL: Australian diver Andrew McKinnon dove exceptionally well in the preliminary round, but then this happened in the semifinal. This dive looked so great in the air, but it was a total miss when he hit the water. He never recovered after that.
HOLLAND: Yes, he finished just out of the top twelve who made the final.
BELL: The Chinese divers also both looked off their game. Liu is usually such a beautiful diver, and he does things in the air that nobody else can do, but so many of his entries were just short of vertical.
HOLLAND: He qualified for the final in eighth place.
BELL: But he did make the final. The good news is that all of the previous round scores are thrown out, so if he dives well in this final, he’s got a good shot at a medal. The trick for Liu will be to shake any residual nerves from the previous rounds. We see this all the time. It’s these athletes’ first Olympics, and nerves make them tighten up.
HOLLAND: What do you think about our returning Olympic champion, Timothy Swan?
BELL: Well, I’ll tell ya, Swan looked fantastic all through the preliminary rounds. All of his dives looked good in the air, and he entered the water very well. Let’s take a look at this third-round dive from the semifinal. See, he gets out from the platform fast so he can pull into his tuck. Then, as he rotates, he sights the water here, and here again, and here again, and then he kicks out. He always knows where he is in the air and how far he is from the pool, so he can straighten out and enter the water perfectly vertical. His entry is smooth with hardly any splash.
HOLLAND: You think he looks good to repeat his gold-medal win?
BELL: If he keeps diving like this? Almost certainly. He’s an entirely different diver from what we saw in the springboard finals. He seemed a little uncertain there. But here, he’s diving very well. He’s in top form. Again, all of the previous round scores go away, so everyone is diving with a clean slate. Swan has looked great, but Liu has several world champion medals, so he’s a contender. I wouldn’t count out Schmidt from Germany either. Or the Italians, who were the bronze medalists in the synchro competition. Both divers have been diving very well in individual competition. And Timmy Swan’s synchro partner, Jason Evans, made the finals as well….
TIM MIRACULOUSLY held on to first place going into the third round of diving. He’d given his all to the prelims, following Donnie’s advice to be mindful of his form, thinking through everything but not tightening up. He’d trained hard all week, he’d gotten a good night’s sleep the night before, he’d eaten well and felt focused and ready to defend his title.
One thing that had made him feel better was the fact that Pat had flown back to the States. He’d called Tim the day before prelims to say he was giving up and going home. Tim had pushed him right out of his mind.
Donnie always said that when Tim was on his game, anything was possible. And Tim was on his game today.
He took a deep breath before ascending the platform for his third dive. When