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Lenzi's Final Dive Mints Gold

Jumping high off the board, soaring into space, Mark Edward Lenzi saved the best for last today in the finals of the men's three-meter springboard competition. Performing the hardest dive of the day -- a reverse 3 1/2 somersault in the tuck position -- the U.S. diver flipped and fell and tucked his way to the gold medal. Tan Liangde of China, who won the silver in 1984 and 1988 in this event, settled for the silver again today.

Lenzi is from Fredericksburg, Va., where, in his words, "There's no diving. ... No swimming pools. No diving boards. That's why I didn't get started until 1986."

Open and unassuming, he told the international crowd about watching U.S. diver Greg Louganis in 1984 on TV, when Louganis was competing at the Los Angeles Olympics. Lenzi was on the wrestling team then, at Stafford High, and going into his senior year. Even though he had been offered a college wrestling scholarship, Lenzi decided to chuck everything for diving. He started driving two hours round trip to Fairfax, he said, to be coached at the Northern Virginia Diving Club.

"I don't know how to explain it," said the 24-year-old. "But I just watched Greg on TV and I knew I could do that. I don't know how I knew, but I knew. He made it look so easy."

Incredulous, his father -- a physicist -- did everything to dissuade him. "We didn't have that much money, and the program was wrestling," said Bill Lenzi, sitting next to Mark's mother Ellie. "He was quite a good wrestler and we had quite a falling out. He even moved in with a neighbor for a couple weeks. Mark proved me very, very wrong -- and showed me that parents don't always know everything."

After two months of diving, Lenzi was offered a full scholarship to dive at Indiana University. Three years later, he became the first American to perform a 4 1/2 forward somersault tuck in competition.

Today, by the fifth dive, Lenzi was in third place -- but only 8.16 points behind Albin Killat of Germany. Lenzi stayed in third through six dives, then moved to first after seven, thanks in part to two incredible flubs by Killat. The first flub was bad enough, but on the second, Killat landed arms stretched out over his head, face down, while attempting to execute a forward 3 1/2 somersault pike. For this stupendous bellyflop, one judge gave Killat a score of 0.0 -- Louganis got better scores when he hit his head on the board in 1988.

Killat sank to 12th place -- dead last. As he stepped out of the pool, the crowd cheered him out of pity.

"I felt bad for Albin that he missed like that," said Lenzi, "but I just had to concentrate on my own diving."

Lenzi performed the same dive Killat had blown the next round -- and received seven scores of 9.0, shooting him up to a 17-point lead over Tan.

With each new round, Lenzi used harder dives. He finished 30.96 points ahead of Tan and 48.75 points ahead of Dmitri Sautin, 18, of the Unified Team, who took the bronze. "This is very regrettable for me," said Tan. "This is my third try {at the gold} and I don't think I was up to my standard level. But Mark did a very superb performance."

Kent Ferguson of Boca Raton, Fla., was the U.S. team's other qualifying diver. He was in fourth place for most of the competition -- a few points away from the bronze medal until the very end. His last dive -- not a great success -- dropped him to fifth, behind Michael Murphy of Australia, who placed fourth.