Cook can’t quite overcome mistake in semifinals
It’s back to Stanford for Woodlands star; Johnston advances
RIO DE JANEIRO — Undone by a single missed approach in the women’s 3-meter springboard semifinals Saturday, The Woodlands’ Kassidy Cook now will look toward resuming her college career at Stanford and pointing toward the 2020 Olympics.
Cook, 21, finished 13th for her second round of five dives, falling one spot and four points away from qualifying for Sunday’s gold-medal round. USA Diving teammate Abby Johnston tied for fifth in the field led by Chinese divers Shi Tingmao and He Zi.
Cook qualified eighth among 24 divers to make the semifinal field, but her chances to advance collapsed on her second dive, a forward 3½-revolution dive in which she landed toward the right edge of the board, wasn’t able to get full extension on takeoff and landed short of vertical.
She improved her position in the fourth and fifth rounds, but her second-round score of 41.85 points, the lowest-scoring dive for any of the 18 competitors, was too much to make up. She totaled 304.35 points, 3.9 behind German Nora Subschiniski, the 12th and final qualifier.
“I think I let my nerves get the better of me in the second round,” Cook said. “I had too much adrenaline and missed the board and was short of vertical.
“Approaches are tricky. I felt a little shaky with my step and got out of timing and didn’t get the full throw from the board.”
Cook missed the Olympic team by less than a point in 2012 and struggled with injuries at Stanford before returning to Houston last year to train with Kenny Armstrong, the former coach of 2000 gold medalist Laura Wilkinson.
“I’m proud of myself for taking the risk of taking a year off from school without knowing if I was going to make the Olympic team,” Cook said. “I think I benefited as a person and a diver. I made the Olympic Games. Things didn’t go as planned, but I had a good experience here.”
She has two years of eligibility remaining at Stanford and said she hopes to be in the mix for USA Diving’s 2020 Olympic team.
Her experience of working with Armstrong, she said, taught her to keep fighting until the final round.
“I could have gotten disheartened, but I clawed my way back up,” Cook said. “I’m proud I stuck it out.”
Her cheering section included her parents, Kevin and Laura Cook, and her five siblings, who made for a boisterous U.S. cheering section to the right of the diving well.
Meanwhile, Rio 2016 organizers said the green tint to the diving well water that began developing last week was the result of a contractor incorrectly dumping hydrogen peroxide into the chlorinated water.
The green-tinted diving well, dubbed “The Swamp” by Johnston, will remain, as officials say it poses no health risk to the athletes.
But organizers announced Saturday a logistically complex plan to drain the water from the adjacent water polo/synchronized swimming pool, dump it into Rio’s sewage disposal system and transfer water via a system of hoses from a backup pool.
“Of course, it is an embarrassment,” said Rio 2016 spokesman Mario Andrada. “We could have and should have done a better job in fixing it quickly.”