Dumais on third Olympic diving team; Utahn Wilcock invited to selection camp

INDIANAPOLIS — Troy Dumais made it 3 for three.

Dumais earned his third trip to the Olympics with a dominating performance in 3-meter springboard at the U.S. trials Saturday, but he had barely crawled from the water when his focus shifted to the ultimate goal — winning a gold medal in Beijing against the powerful Chinese team.

"I'm going to get back in the weight room on Monday morning," said Dumais, a 28-year-old native of Ventura, Calif. "The flame is burning as bright as ever."

Christina Loukas locked up her first trip to the Olympics with an easy win in the women's 3-meter, though the enormity of it all was a bit overwhelming.

"It's not really hit me yet," said Loukas, a 22-year-old from Riverwoods, Ill.

Dumais earned a couple of perfect 10s for his second dive, overcame a bit of a wobble on his next-to-last attempt and blew away the 12-diver field with a total of 1552.90 over three rounds.

"I wanted to treat this like the Olympics," he said. "I'm not going to be 90-something points ahead of the Chinese going to the last round."

Dumais finished sixth on springboard at the last two Olympics in Sydney and Athens — totally unacceptable for someone who grew up worshipping one of the greatest divers in Olympic history.

"When I was a little kid watching Greg Louganis win all those medals, I got the idea in my head that I wanted to win more than him," Dumais said. "That may not be realistic, but it stuck with me."

Only the trials winner is awarded a spot on the team, though Chris Colwill will be favored for his first Olympic berth when the rest of the American squad is named at a selection camp in Knoxville, Tenn., next month. He was the runner-up with 1465.10 in one of the best performances of his career.

Colwill, who is 60 percent deaf, broke out a brutally tough dive in the final round, a reverse 2 1/2 somersault with 2 1/2 twists from the pike position. The crowd at the Indiana University Natatorium let out a collective gasp when the announcer called out the degree of difficulty — 3.9. No one else tried a dive higher than 3.5.

The 23-year-old Floridian received marks of 6.5 to 8.0. His coach, Dan Laak, pumped his fists on the pool deck when Colwill popped up from the water, clearly pleased he had pulled it off without any major problems.

"Throwing out the big dive at end, and doing it quite well, you can't ask for anything more than that," Colwill said.