After gold at World Championships, Wilkinson testing new dive

HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. - After wrist surgery in January, Laura Wilkinson wasn't sure she would even make the U.S. Diving team.

Now, a month after winning the gold medal at the World Championships, her confidence is so high she's breaking out a new dive for this week's U.S. National Diving Championships.

"Just to be back on the platform, to make the team, was such a big accomplishment," Wilkinson said Monday on winning the gold in Montreal. "I didn't know what the recovery time was going to be. To dive that well was really a high note."

The 27-year-old Wilkinson, the only woman in the world to win a platform gold medal at the Olympics, World Cup and World Championships, will test out a reverse 3 1/2 this week during the nationals at Huntersville Family Fitness and Aquatics.

"This is a good opportunity to try it out here," Wilkinson said. There's not too much pressure here. It's nationals, not worlds, so it's a good in-between meet to try something out."

It's the first new dive for the Spring, Texas, native in more than two years.

"I've only done about 10 of them, but I'm really excited about the possibility for this dive over the next couple of years," Wilkinson said.

She's hoping it will help her chances for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. After winning a gold medal in Sydney in 2000, Wilkinson slipped to fifth last year in Athens.

"It's definitely serves as motivation," Wilkinson said. "If I had medaled, maybe I wouldn't have the drive I have this year. I look back, and I wasn't on that day. It definitely gives me the fuel for the next four years."

The nationals begin Tuesday with preliminaries and semifinals. The finals begin on Thursday and run through Saturday.

Troy Dumais, the silver medalist in the 3-meter springboard last month in Montreal, is in the men's field this week, along with his brother Justin. The pair won the bronze in the 3-meter synchro at the Worlds.

Chelsea Davis, the American diver who hit her head on the board last month during the 3-meter springboard preliminaries, is not competing this week. A meet spokesman said Davis is healthy enough to compete, but she and her coach decided to take the rest of the summer off so she can prepare to attend Northwestern in the fall.