Wilkinson handles defeat with an uncommon grace

By JOHN P. LOPEZ
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

ATHENS, Greece — Laura Wilkinson's face should be on some kind of Olympic commemorative stamp.

There should be some kind of tribute to what most of America wishes the world would see in its athletes. Wilkinson is that image.

She is fresh and happy, yet finely tuned and fiercely focused. She wins gracefully, as she did in 2000.

Then she finishes fifth — "bummed," as she put it, after Sunday's Olympic 10-meter platform finals — even more gracefully.

Four years ago, Wilkinson was the original Ohmigosh Girl, so genuinely overwhelmed and awe-struck when something great happened to her.

Her jaw dropped when she realized she would win the gold medal. She covered her mouth with her hands, tears filled her eyes, and then she went to hug her coach, Ken Armstrong. America hugged back.

Wilkinson made it easy for much of the world to think she just fell out of the sky doing all these unimaginably difficult dives. She made it easy to forget about the unreal commitment, painful rehabilitation and long hours of work that went into her grasping a Sydney moment, stunning the world despite needing surgery on her foot.

On Sunday, she made it easy to forget that she was here to win the gold.

It was only the gold that drove Wilkinson to come out of a two-year break after Sydney, after surgery, and start adding new dives. Only the gold pushed her into adding more difficulty to her dives and spending longer days at her training facility in The Woodlands.

Only the gold was on her mind Sunday, when in an eerily similar situation to Sydney four years earlier, Wilkinson had climbed to fourth place after three of five rounds of diving. The formidable Chinese were waning, and the Aussies were unproven on this stage.

With two dives remaining, Wilkinson was in almost the identical place she was four years earlier, with the same things happening to two of her biggest rivals for the gold.

Canada's Emilie Heymans dropped out of the hunt after landing short on a dive. China's Li Ting over-rotated on her reverse 2 1/2 -somersault dive, also dropping behind Wilkinson. Australia's Loudy Tourky took a two-tenths deduction for having to correct her handstand.

"I thought maybe it was going to be like Sydney," Wilkinson said. "It was right there."

Then it wasn't. On one of her favorite dives, a back 3 1/2 somersault, Wilkinson misjudged the release of her tuck position only slightly. It was enough to know that no medal would come.

And what did she do? She smiled. It was honest and authentic, a kind of all-encompassing gee-whiz.

She walked toward her coach and hugged him. On her next and final dive, she chatted with a cameraman standing near her at the top of the platform as if she were just another diver at another meet.

She clasped her hands in front of her in an aw-shucks kind of moment as she waited to get the signal to take off. Fans called out her name, and she smiled again.

She made you forget that she arrived here with injuries some would use as an excuse — a sore triceps muscle and nagging soreness in both wrists. She made you forget that fifth place made her want to cry.

With teammate Sara Hildebrand, Wilkinson walked in front of the grandstands and held up a towel that had the inscription, "Thank you, Greece."

She waved at friends and fans. The medal ceremony began, and Wilkinson walked the other way, under the grandstands, the competitiveness inside her surely burning. But you'd never know it from the graceful way she ended the night.

Of the Australians, gold medalist Chantelle Newberry and bronze medalist Tourky, both of whom have tried to capture a Wilkinson kind of magic for years, Wilkinson said: "It's great for them. Those two girls are so sweet."

You knew she meant it. She is the one we should point to when lecturing children about sports, competitiveness, class and grace.

"She's one of the most amazing athletes I've ever been around," Armstrong said. "She's one of the most amazing people."

We live in an age when we are surrounded by athletes — not just Americans anymore — who like to strut when they win. And when they lose, they sulk.

Remember the members of the U.S. sprint-relay team acting like fools in Sydney, posing as if they were some kind of Greek gods?

Have you seen the, ahem, Dream Team lately?

Players slouch and sulk on the bench as their team gets whipped by another international foe, looking like they're either mad about losing or mad about playing time. All in all, they look like they'd rather be watching a defensive driving class video.

Even in the adjoining building to the diving venue on Sunday, Russian ice princess Svetlana Khorkina didn't get the score she thought she deserved in the gymnastics apparatus finals and left the floor in a huff before the competition was over.

Yet there was Wilkinson, being classically Olympian. Aspiring for victory. But when it could not come, she stood there enjoying the journey that brought her here.

"I wanted to have the meet of my life," she said. "I went after every dive. ... It just wasn't there."

Oh, but it was. The reason we watch the Games, the picture of what it is all about, was there, just as it was four years ago. This time, Wilkinson just happened to finish fifth.

john.lopez@chron.com