University of Georgia Athletics
Ryan, Ball Ready For Diving Trials
June 20, 2016 | Swimming & Diving
UGAAA Staff Writer
Olivia Ball was expecting this to be a rather laid back summer — she was kind of looking forward to it, actually. It had been a long school year and season for the Georgia diver, who in March helped the women's swimming and diving team capture the program's seventh NCAA title.
"I was planning on going home for all of June," the rising junior from Powell, Ohio, said before a recent training session at the Gabrielsen Natatorium. "I'd told all my friends I was coming back and I'd signed up for two online classes, and I was just going to focus on those."
The women's 3-meter diving "cut," or qualifying score to earn a spot in the USA Diving Olympic Trials, was 290 points (or 348 points in an NCAA meet, which features an additional dive). Former Georgia diver Laura Ryan, a two-time NCAA champion in 2014, had that score sealed up long ago, and thus knew she'd be in Indianapolis in the second half of June for the Trials. Ball hadn't quite hit the cut, though she was close on several occasions.
USA Diving allows a diver that doesn't hit the cut to petition for a spot in the Trials. Georgia diving coach Dan Laak and Ball petitioned — there was nothing to lose, of course — and Ball was given a spot in the field. Ball said she found out about a month ago.
"Instead of going home I've been here training, doing a lot of two-a-days, and it's just been about getting back in shape," she said. "When Dan and I were talking about (the petition), he didn't really think there was a shot that I'd get in, because they'd had a last-chance meet."
Ball couldn't compete in the last-chance meet because of some academic commitments, but the petition was granted. Luckily for Ball, who lives across the street from the Ramsey Center, she didn't have to scramble at the last second to find summer housing. And with all the two-a-days she's done leading up to the Trials, the closer her bed is to the pool, the better.
"Because the college season is so grueling and we're traveling so much and have so many meets back to back, and I'm very clumsy and injury-prone, so my body just needed a break at the end," she said. "So I actually took off about a month off (after the season), just to try to get school back under control and to try to get everything back to normal. I honestly don't know if I could have done this if I didn't have that break that I had."
Ryan and Ball are making their second appearances at the Trials, having first gone in 2012. Neither had much in the way of expectations then and neither came close to making the Olympic team. Of course, it's not easy to make it when only two divers from each event can go.
"Making a team is special and obviously medaling is the icing on the cake," Laak said. "You don't want to just be satisfied with making the team. In this country it's hard to make the team; remember, only two divers make it in each event. That's it, in the whole country.
"There will be 28 divers in their event at the Trials. That's a very elite group and you've got to be special to make it, and that's something you can carry with you no matter what."
The current and former Bulldogs are among the 28 divers competing in the 3-meter springboard. It's the only event for both, which is a change from 2012. Ball competed in the individual and synchronized 3-meter springboard four years ago, while Ryan was then primarily a 10-meter platform diver.
Ryan began her collegiate career at Indiana and transferred to Georgia right after the Trials.
"I remember moving to Athens right after the Trials in 2012 and I remember right when we started classes, that first day we were in the weight room, and Dan walked in and said, ‘Alright, you ready for 2016?'" Ryan recalled. "I was kind of like taken aback, this was still 2012, but I think literally from the day I got here it's all been about these Games."
The years since Ryan came to Athens have been productive, to say the least. In her Georgia career she set five school records and in 2014 won NCAA titles in the 1-meter and 3-meter springboard events as a senior. There have also been strong World University Games and FINA Diving World Cup performances in recent years.
Ryan admits to just kind of being happy to be there at her last Trials. But that's certainly not the case now. Not after emerging as one of the top Americans in the 3-meter over the past few years.
"I had no idea what to expect walking into the arena last time around, and the idea of the Olympics was so far out of reach for me, it seemed like, and now I've had four years to let it sink in that it's a possibility for me," Ryan said. "And I think knowing what to expect going in there is giving me a lot of confidence in my abilities and my ability to handle the pressure."
Unlike Ryan and Ball, Georgia volunteer assistant coach César Augusto Aquino de Castro has already secured his spot in the Olympics. The native of Brazil will be competing in his fourth Olympics — no small feat — and he'll get to do it in his home country. He was 20 years old at his first Olympics, in 2004, and might not have gone for round four if it wasn't being held in Rio de Janeiro.
"I'm not sure," he said. "It's a hard question, but maybe not."
But he's going and he's all in, though he isn't thinking about the Games, which begin in August, too much yet. At least not if he can help it.
"When I start thinking too much, and start feeling, I don't like this too much," he said. "It's hard to sleep once you start thinking. ... Three weeks before the competition, then I'll start thinking about it."
Ryan and Ball are hoping to be thinking about it, too.
John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: http://www.georgiadogs.com/ot/frierson-files.html. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
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