Dinsmore says he’s progressed after Olympic near-miss

A year removed from his disappointment of not making the 2016 U.S. Olympic diving team on the 10-meter platform, David Dinsmore still eagerly leaps off the high ledge.

There remains “a little bit” of hurt involved, the New Albany native said, “but I’ve kind of become a better person and diver because of it. It has made me focus more on what I need to do and how I prepare for my meets, and in how I compete as well.

“So if anything it helped me. I’ve become a better competitor, I’ve trained harder, and I think it’s got me set up for these next four years to where I work harder every day just to make sure that Olympic dream still comes true.”

His next step back onto the international stage has been at the FINA world championships in Budapest, Hungary, where platform competition begins Friday. Dinsmore, 20, won a bronze medal on Tuesday in the mixed 3-meter/10-meter event.

The world championships will be followed by the World University Games in Taiwan next month.

“I don’t feel like I’m under any pressure, I just want to go out there and compete and try not to think about stuff outside the competition,” Dinsmore said.

The University of Miami sophomore knows he is one of the elite divers in the world, “that you’re competing against other countries’ best, and that makes you feel great. I try to go out and do the best that I can because I know everyone else is going to be at that same level. Everyone wants to see who can do it when it comes time to compete.”

As for exorcising lingering thoughts from last year’s U.S. Olympic trials in Indianapolis when one bad dive out of six cost him the trip to Brazil, he did that this spring. He won the NCAA 10-meter championship in the same venue on the campus of IUPUI where he was edged by Steele Johnson by two points for one of the two spots on the U.S. team.

“We’ve been talking about it, and he knew he had to be bring his ‘A’ game,” his coach, Miami’s Randy Ableman, said at the time. “There was no room for error. He brought it.”

Dinsmore is determined to prove the one bad splash in 2016 was just a ripple in his career.

“At the time I was in a little bit of a funk, just because of publicity the Olympians were getting and I know that could have been me … but looking at it now it was just another bump,” Dinsmore said. “I’m going out there (in the world championships) determined to dive like I know I can, try not to think about what happened in the past, not to prove myself or anything, just go out there and dive.”

Where he is stronger compared to a year ago, he said, is in the mind game facet.

“In diving, that’s one of the greatest things you can improve on because it is such a mental sport,” Dinsmore said. “You only get six dives and you’ve really got to make the best of them. I’ve gotten better in practice with each dive, making them count, so that when it comes time to compete I’m ready to go.”