Summer Olympics 2004

Olympians don't disappoint at diving nationals

By wire services
Published July 25, 2004

MISSION VIEJO, Calif. - Olympic team members Caesar Garcia and Kimiko Soldati won titles in their specialties Saturday at the U.S. National Diving Championships, their final tuneups before the Athens Games next month.

Garcia won the men's 10-meter platform event on his sixth and final dive, edging Matt Bricker and 14-year-old Thomas Finchum. Garcia totaled 625.77 points to 617.64 for Bricker and 583.47 for Finchum.

Soldati won the women's 3-meter springboard over Chelsea Davis 515.04-502.23 despite losing several days of training last week after receiving two cortisone shots to treat an injured right shoulder.

Like most of the other Olympic team members, Garcia and Soldati were training through the U.S. nationals in preparation of the Olympics. Diving events in Athens are scheduled for Aug. 14-28.

"I feel like we all have an extra burden on us because we all feel like we have something to prove here because we're on the Olympic team," said Garcia, 22, of Baton Rouge, La. "I appreciate the challenge."

Garcia and Bricker later teamed to win the men's synchronized 10-meter platform final over Olympic teammates Kyle Prandi and Mark Ruiz.

Soldati said she was as concerned about her shoulder as her rivals, particularly after finishing third in the qualifying rounds. "At this point, its just pain management," said Soldati, 30, who lives in Magnolia, Texas. "Its difficult to have confidence that it wasn't going to hurt. I fought hard for every dive today."

Neither Davis nor Sara Hildebrand could match her in the late rounds Saturday.

Olympic trial champions Hildebrand and Cassandra Cardinell won the women's synchronized 3-meter springboard title over Allison and Kellie Brennan.

Finals in the men's 3-meter springboard and synchronized 3-meter springboard and women's 10-meter platform and synchronized 10-meter platform are scheduled for today, the final day of the six-day meet.

BASEBALL: The Greek team has sufficient financial backing to go to Greece after working out next month in the United States, an official of the Baltimore Orioles said. On Friday, the president of the Greek Baseball Federation declared that the team is so short of cash that it has no funds to return for the Games.

"At this moment we do not have money to pay for the tickets for our team to come to participate in the Olympic Games," Panos Mitsiopoulos told the Associated Press.

That is not the case, according to Orioles spokesman Bill Stetka: "We were surprised to hear that. It's a nonissue. The flights have been arranged, and the cost already covered, through a cooperative effort by the Orioles, Major League Baseball, the Greek Federation and the family of Peter Angelos."

Angelos, a Greek-American who owns the Orioles, helped organize the Greek Olympic team.

Stetka said the team will begin practicing in the Baltimore area on Aug. 2 and stay through the Aug. 4 before heading home to Greece.

Mitsiopoulos claims the federation only received about a third of the promised $372,000 for Olympics preparations. He said other Greek sports federations also are short on funds.

"This is happening with all the teams. All the federations are complaining," he said.

GYMNASTICS: Ronny Ziesmer was released from intensive care, two weeks after the German Olympic hopeful broke his neck during a fall in practice. Ziesmer, who will turn 25 Monday, broke a neck vertebra and damaged his spinal cord while executing a double somersault on the rings July 12. His arms and legs have been paralyzed since.

His club, SC Cottbus, said he has been moved to the regular clinic at the Berlin trauma hospital, which also treated Alex Zanardi, the CART driver who lost both his legs in a crash in Germany.

Walter Schaffartzik, chief of the clinic, said the spinal cord injuries are irreversible.

[Last modified July 24, 2004, 23:57:22]