FORT LAUDERDALE — Laura Wilkinson has been around long enough to remember when divers competed in bikinis.
Saturday, she learned that still competing at age 30 has its benefits. Namely, you stick around long enough, you're bound to find yourself back in style.
Unable to resist wearing a pink flowered bikini later in the day, Wilkinson stood out in more ways than one. She captured a silver medal in the women's 10-meter platform and a bronze in the synchronized platform with teammate Jessica Livingston in the USA Diving Grand Prix event at the International Swimming Hall of Fame Aquatic Complex.
"We figured it's Fort Lauderdale," Wilkinson said of her and Livingston's attire. "We had to do pink and then it had to be a bikini. I guess a while back, people used to wear them all the time (in competition). They kind of faded out, so maybe we're bringing them back again."
A renaissance was the order of the day, because a U.S. team that was shut out of the medals podium at the 2004 Athens Olympics solidified itself as a medal contender for this summer's Beijing Olympics. Troy Dumais, 28, another two-time U.S. Olympian, captured silver in the 3-meter springboard on a day when Chinese and Japanese divers swept gold.
"Troy and I have known each other a long time," Wilkinson said. "We've dove together for a long time and it's nice that we can both have a good day together. Hopefully that'll charge the team up for tomorrow because we have a lot of people in the finals."
The meet concludes today at 2 p.m. with finals in men's platform, women's springboard and men's synchronized platform.
Dumais, from Austin, Texas, placed second to Japan's Ken Terauchi. China's Hao Wang won the women's platform and teamed with Li Kang to win the women's platform.
"What we can take from this is we can compete with the best," Dumais said.
That's the precisely the feeling Wilkinson, of The Woodlands, Texas, had in 2004. Problem was, that's not what the scoreboard said. The 2000 gold medalist was fifth in what was supposed to be her Olympic finale.
"Not getting the medal and being so close, it was kind of like a carrot dangled in front of me," Wilkinson said. "It made me think, 'You know what? I can do better than that. Maybe I can even do harder dives.' It just kind of spurred me on with learning all these dives the last couple of years.
"It's all exciting and fresh."
It's not like Wilkinson has much to prove. At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, she was in eighth place in the final round but rallied for gold despite a broken right foot covered by a kayak boot. She doesn't look at that medal much. She doesn't need to.
"Whenever I go through something, or an injury, I have that to look back on and say, 'Look what we did,' " she said.
Wilkinson hopes that someday she can look back on 2008 and say the same, and it's not solely for what she might do in Beijing.
Wilkinson became the diver she is while training at The Woodlands Athletic Center with coach Kenny Armstrong. This fall, the center will close despite his success over 19 years.
Determined not to let all Armstrong built vanish, Wilkinson established the Laura Wilkinson Foundation, which aims to raise $11 million to build a replacement.
"It's a little intimidating," Wilkinson said. "It's a new adventure for me to be in more of the business world, but it's been a learning experience and a lot of people have come to help. We're starting some fund-raisers and awareness programs this summer."
She knows there is no better awareness program than that little thing called the Olympic Games, but first she must qualify at the Trials in Indianapolis in June.
"I definitely want to win a gold medal," Wilkinson said. "I mean, that should be everybody's goal. You shouldn't go in there if you don't want to win the gold."
August can be all about gold. Saturday was all about pink. All about looking the part, especially at a venue one block from Fort Lauderdale's famous beach.
Even Wilkinson's rivals approved.
"All the other girls loved it," Wilkinson said. "They wanted it, too."