SWAN: I’m trying to be realistic. There’s a stacked field. Brilliant divers from China, Japan, Italy, England, and Australia. The medals could really go to anyone. On the one hand, it’s an exciting time to be diving and to realize that I can compete with all of these men. On the other hand, it’s a tough field to compete against. All I can do is keep training and put my all into it.
BELL (voiceover): Swan is modest, though. He’s an incredibly brave young gay man who is trying, at the age of twenty-four, to dive his way to another gold medal. Will he upset the Chinese again, or are they truly unbeatable? Does he have a real shot here? We’ll have to watch to find out.
Transcript: Men’s Synchronized Ten-Meter Platform Final
HOLLAND: Welcome back to the Domingo Aquatics Center. I’m Al Holland, and with me is Diane Bell. We’re here tonight for the finals of the men’s ten-meter platform final in synchronized diving.
BELL: I like the Americans’ chances in this competition, I have to say. Timothy Swan is the returning Olympic champion in the ten-meter platform. You’ll remember, four years ago, he gave a spectacular final dive that edged out the Chinese divers.
HOLLAND: But you have to admit, the Chinese are pretty hard to beat.
BELL: The team of Xiao and Ting are the reigning world champions, and they’ve been nearly flawless in the last three years of competition. I’m not sure anyone can beat them. Timothy Swan is paired up with a relative newcomer, Jason Evans. Evans was the junior world champion, but he has very little experience at this level. They could surprise us, and they’ve looked good all year, but this is a very deep field.
HOLLAND: In other words, you think the Chinese are going to win gold, but the Americans have an outside shot at a medal.
BELL: Well, yes. Don’t forget about the pair from Great Britain, though. They’re also a factor. They’ve looked great all year. And the Italians are also in the hunt, with the pair of Cologna and Burghini looking very good.
HOLLAND: Before we show you round two, let’s go to some highlights from round one. First up are the Italians.
BELL: These first-round dives are going to have a lower degree of difficulty, but look for the difficulty and the scores to go up each round. For this first dive, it’s all about both divers being in perfect sync with each other.
HOLLAND: All right. Well, let’s take a look at this dive from the Italians.
BELL: That was pretty great. Not a difficult dive. The degree of difficulty is only a 2.0. But both divers are in sync with each other. They’re off the platform together and quickly get into the pike position, then roll out and both enter vertically with very little splash. That’s what you want to do in your Olympic final.
HOLLAND: Still a lot more diving to go. The next pair up are Timothy Swan and Jason Evans.
BELL: Their practice sessions have looked good. Swan and Evans seem like a solid pair. Swan is a little cleaner than Evans and his form tends to be tighter. He’s a beautiful diver. But if these guys can demonstrate good synchronization, they have a shot at a medal. They’re doing the same first dive as the Italians.
HOLLAND: All right, here we go.
BELL: Oh, that was a great dive! You’ll see when we watch it in slow motion, they’re both off the platform at the same time. Evans is a little farther out from the platform than Swan, but that won’t affect the score. They’re very well in sync, as you’ll see here. Into the pike, and then they open up at the same time and they’re into the water cleanly. That was a great entry by both divers.
HOLLAND: And those scores put them ahead of the Italians….
BY ROUND three, Tim and Jason were in third place, behind the Brits and the Chinese, but the margin of difference between them was small enough that if Tim and Jason kept diving well, it was still anybody’s gold medal. The degree of difficulty of Tim and Jason’s last dive was higher than the Brits’, so they had a good chance of at least taking the silver.
Not that Tim was obsessing about the scoreboard.
Jason preferred to ignore it. Right now, he sat at the edge of a hot tub with his headphones on, bopping his head and mouthing the lyrics to whatever