Execution Costs Americans a Medal

Olympic gold medalist, Li Ting, left, and Zhao Qinxin, of China, finished second behind the Russian team of Yulia Pakhalina and Anastasia Pozdniakova. (By Alan Diaz -- Associated Press)

For Miller and Loukas, the scores looked better than they felt about the night's work, irked as they were over failing to execute seamlessly their two easiest dives -- a forward dive pike and an inward dive pike. They earned two of the lower marks of the first two rounds, tallying just 93.00 compared to the 96.00 with which Yarrison and Johnston began.

"I think we just looked past our first two dives because they were, like, easy dives," Loukas said. "It was a mistake on our part."

How careless were they? They noted, with grins, that they even neglected to do their personal pre-dive handshake -- which involves pounding the tops of each other's fists once, then spreading their fingers wide -- before those two dives. They corrected their mistakes quickly: They did the handshake before their next attempt, then nailed the dive. It was ranked the third best of the night.

That was saying something considering that the gold-medal winning Russian team included a former world champion and Olympic gold medal winner (Pakhalina); the Chinese team featured an Olympic champion (Li); and the third-place Aussies also claimed the bronze at last year's world championships in Melbourne.

And the fifth-place German team? They are the reigning world silver medal winners.

"I wouldn't say we're satisfied, but I wouldn't say we have regrets, either," Yarrison said. "Apart from the Chinese, this is everyone's A team here."

Said Johnston: "We've never competed at that level. For us, we did really well."