At some point, Laura Wilkinson will focus on perhaps the most imposing challenge of her life — raising millions of dollars to build a diving complex to replace the Woodlands Athletic Center, her home away from home for the past 15 years.
But this week, real estate is an afterthought for Wilkinson, 30, who joins her coach, Kenny Armstrong, and nine current or former teammates on the Woodlands Dive Team at USA Diving's five-day Olympic Trials in Indianapolis.
If Wilkinson wins the women's 10-meter platform competition against a field that includes Woodlands teammates Vennie Dantin, Michelle Cabassol and Jessica Livingston, plus 2004 Olympic teammate Cassandra Cardinell, she will clinch a spot on her third Olympic team. If not, she will have another opportunity to qualify at a training camp next month in Knoxville, Tenn.
Under either scenario, she faces a week of challenge, reflection and nostalgia.
Wilkinson will retire after this Olympic cycle, and Armstrong will pass on the day-to-day reins of the Woodlands Dive Team to his assistant, Bob Gunter, as he works with Wilkinson on fundraising efforts for the new diving well.
So this week in Indianapolis, in a matter of speaking, marks one of the last significant road trips for the diver, her coach and the young men and women with whom they've shared so many practice sessions at the WAC.
"This year is a lot like 2000 (when she won the Olympic gold medal six months after crushing her foot in a training accident)," Wilkinson said. "That was my first shot, and I know that this is my last one.
"Last year I got stuck in nostalgia, thinking about the approaching end. Now, I'm loving it. This is my last chance, and I'm going to make some good memories."
Wilkinson, who is scheduled to compete Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, won her 19th national championship in April, and last month won silver behind Wang Hao of China at a FINA Diving Grand Prix meet in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Eight years after winning a gold medal and four years after finishing fifth at the Athens Olympics, she continues to challenge the outer limits of her capabilities. Four of her five optional dives, for example, were performed by Tian Liang, the men's platform gold medalist at the 2000 Games.
"I want more from myself," she said. "I want to do big dives for really big scores. I know I'm capable of it. That is what drives me. It's not about winning. It's about being fulfilled. Nothing beats that."
Wilkinson's final optional dive is a back 2 1/2 -somersaults with 1 1/2 twists. If she makes the team, Armstrong said, she will consider doing a back 2 1/2 with 2 1/2 twists in Beijing.
"We take a shot at winning by adding degree of difficulty," Armstrong said. "That's what we decided to do after 2004. Maybe it means she doesn't make the team. But if we go into the Olympics with that high of a DD (adding the harder twisting dive) and she's with the rest of the field, she will win the gold."
Wilkinson is prone on occasion to Perils of Pauline performances at major meets. In the 2004 Olympic trials, for example, she entered the final round leading by 42 points, squandered all but 5.37 points but hit her final dive to win by 42 points.
Avoiding similar theatrics in Indianapolis this week would enable her to turn her attention at the camp to her platform synchro team with Jessica Livingston, who took a redshirt year at the University of Texas to prepare for the Olympics.
Wilkinson and Livingston won the USA Diving national championship this spring and won a bronze medal at the Grand Prix meet in Fort Lauderdale. Synchro teams will not compete at the Indianapolis trials, so those spots on the U.S. team will not be determined until the July training camp.
Of his divers who will compete at the trials, Armstrong believes Wilkinson, Drew Livingston in men's platform, and Nancilea Foster in women's springboard have the best chance to clinch a spot on the Olympic team this week.
Foster, the former Nancilea Underwood, has been working with Armstrong for 18 years, three years longer than Wilkinson, and has won back-to-back national titles on springboard.
"I've been working on visualization and mentally preparing myself for the pressure and the atmosphere of the trials," she said.
Like Wilkinson, Foster credits Armstrong in large part for her success.
"He has the ability to prepare athletes for the stress of the situation," she said. "He will draw us into the feeling of a meet situation during practice. He'll set the scene, and then when you get to the meet you find yourself — 'Oh, I've been in this situation before, two weeks ago in practice.' "
Approaching his final Olympic trials as coach of the Woodlands team, Armstrong hopes to take his divers to Beijing by taking them back to basics.
"What I want them to do is be really steady, to know their techniques," he said. "From there, they allow the atmosphere and the competition to raise them to the level that we need. If they don't know the basics, pressure has an opposite effect. They have nothing to fall back on.
"We motivate ourselves by saying that we have a job to do in August (at the Olympics). I'm not worried about (the other U.S. divers). If we can't beat them, I'd rather stay home. They're not in the ballpark with me. My motivation comes from wanting to go to China and to beat them in their backyard."
Only then, he said, can he and Wilkinson turn their attention back to raising the money for a diving center to replace the Woodlands Athletic Center, which will close at the end of the year.
"A gold medal (in Beijing) would really help," Wilkinson said. "But that's not something I can predict. I still think people will get involved because of the kids.
"More publicity would help, but this is not about me. It's about our team. The kids on this team are our future Olympic champions."