Diver Kunkel finishes ninth

ATHENS, Greece — Ten years ago, when she was a student at Hunter High School, Rachelle Smith took up diving when a member of the school swim team said they needed divers and she knew Rachelle was a gymnast.

Rachelle (pronounced Ra-Shell) gave it a try, and Thursday night she placed ninth in the Olympic Games.

"This experience was unbelievable," said the 26-year-old diver, whose last name is now Kunkel. "What an awesome experience to be in this field. The girls I was with in the finals, it was such an honor just to compete with them."

Kunkel was the only U.S. woman to qualify for the 12-diver finals in the 3-meter springboard category. Her teammate, Kimiko Soldati, did not make it out of the opening round of 32, when the top 18 moved on. In the semifinal round competition held Thursday morning, Kunkel finished 12th, which meant she faced an uphill battle in the evening finals with each qualifier taking her semifinal points with her.

She was in top form, though, and managed to climb three spots in the competitive field. At one point she was as high as eighth, but dropped back to ninth after the last round of dives, when Tania Cagnotto of Italy edged past her.

Jingjing Guo of China won the gold medal with 633.15 points, followed by teammate Winxia Wu (612) as the Chinese maintained their station atop world diving. Russia's Yulia Pakhalina won the bronze medal (610.62) ahead of her teammate, Vera Ilyina (589.11).

Blythe Hartley of Canada was fifth at 573 points, followed by two Australians, Loudy Tourky (566.94) and Irina Lashko (551.97) and then Cagnotto (550.38) and Kunkel (546.72). Emilie Heymans of Canada was 10th (530.73), while Ditte Kotzian of Germany, who came into the finals in third place, finished 11th at 509.52 points. Paola Espinosa of Mexico rounded out the scoring with 490.20 points.

"I'm very pleased with her performance," said Kunkel's coach, Hongping Li. "What we wanted was a very solid, consistent performance. That's what she did today."

"I'm super happy with the list (of dives) I put together," said Kunkel. "I feel like I kept my nerves deep inside. I wanted to do it the way I did in practice and have no regrets. I feel like I did that."