Mission Viejo Diving Competition : Wyland Takes the Plunge Despite Some Fears

The reverse 2 1/2-somersault tuck from the 10-meter platform has been good to Wendy Wyland; it has long been one of her best dives. But as she stood on the platform Friday in the Marguerite Recreation Center at Mission Viejo contemplating the dive in warmups, Wyland--1984 Olympic bronze medalist--was afraid.

She was afraid enough to call out to her coach, Ron O’Brien, the former Mission Viejo Nadadore coach, who watched from the ground.

“I’m scared,” Wyland said from the top of the platform, for all to hear.

A dive that has long been solid has become frightening to Wyland, not because she suddenly fears the height or is afraid of a painful injury, but because to perform it makes her fear for her diving career.

In December, she dislocated her shoulder on the same dive. She performed the dive in a meet last month, but had not practiced it since.

Friday as she balked at the top of the platform, O’Brien just shrugged and told her she had to face it. Wyland made the dive. Later, in her next-to-last dive in the women’s platform quarterfinal competition in the McDonald’s Cup III, she did it again, receiving scores as high as eight for her best dive of the day.

Wyland, 22, scored a total of 370.05 points in the platform competition, advancing with seven others to today’s semifinals. Only 1984 Olympic silver medalist Michele Mitchell (412.75), and Karen LaFace (370.65), the 1987 NCAA champion, scored higher.

Megan Neyer, the 1986 U.S. Outdoors champion, was high scorer in the women’s springboard, and Greg Louganis, the 1984 Olympic double gold medalist, had the highest point total in the men’s springboard and platform.

The problem with the reverse 2 1/2-somersault tuck is what it can do to Wyland’s shoulder on entry. After eight years of competitive diving, her shoulder has had its share of the wear from the forceful entries into the pool.

“When you’re diving off the 10-meter tower you’re going about 40 miles an hour,” Wyland said. “That’s a lot of impact on your shoulder . . . If I land short (on this particular dive), it pushes my shoulder forward. My shoulder is sitting about a half-inch out of the socket. I’m afraid it is going to get pushed forward and I’m not going to be able to dive.”

Doctors compare the feelings resulting from the weakened ligaments to the “deadarm” numbness some pitchers suffer, Wyland said.

Wyland injured her shoulder after the 1984 Olympics and had the torn cartilage removed. She completely recovered from the surgery, she said.

What worries Wyland about her shoulder now is a fear that, left alone or aggravated, it could end her career. Her thoughts already are geared to the 1988 Olympics.

O’Brien puts it bluntly: “She has to have something done or she won’t be able to dive anymore.”

Wyland has not so much a choice about whether to have her shoulder operated on, but when.

“I have to have it before ’88 (the year of the next Olympics),” Wyland said.

She will have the operation either almost immediately, in which case she would miss the indoor nationals and the FINA World Cup in April, or put it off until August, which, coupled with the necessary four-month healing period, would begin to cut into her training for the Olympic trials.

Wyland said she is confident that she will be back in top form shortly after the operation.

Wyland, who trained under O’Brien at Mission Viejo for seven years, left in 1985 to follow him to Boca Raton, Fla., where he coaches the Mission Bay Makos. This weekend’s meet marks the first time Wyland and other former Mission Viejo divers--including Louganis, Mitchell and Neyer--have competed at Mission Viejo since leaving.

Wyland and Mitchell seemed to have marred their homecoming somewhat early in the day when they both failed to advance to the springboard semifinals. Wyland flubbed two dives, and was unable to overcome twos, threes, and fours on those dives. Mitchell received a score of zero on one dive after bailing out on a backward takeoff.

But neither was very concerned over the miscues; it is still the preseason and they are not in top shape, having only recently begun training. Instead, they reveled in being back and made plans to see friends and family.

“Being in Mission Viejo is almost like being at home,” Wyland said. You know the tower and you know the springboard and you know the pool. And I really miss the mountain view from the platform.”

Said O’Brien: “It was pretty nostalgic yesterday, but I’m getting more used to it today. Florida’s great, I have no complaints, but you forget what it’s like at a place where you had seven and a half years of so many great things happening.”

Springboard specialist Tristan Baker-Schultz is another former Nadadore who is competing at Mission Viejo for the first time since she stopped training there. But while her former teammates who now train in Florida have the tans and bleached hair to prove it, Baker-Schultz has the complexion and hair of one who has just endured a Boston winter, which she has.

Baker-Schultz met Ted Schultz, a physical therapy student, while studying zoology at Brigham Young University. They were married in August, and she followed him to Boston, where he is doing graduate work at Boston University.

Living in a city without a large diving community, Baker-Schultz now trains alone for the most part. She critiques her diving with only the occasional help of John Walker, Harvard’s diving coach.

“It’s hard,” Baker-Schultz said. “You find it has to come from yourself.”

Baker-Schultz never has won a national or international event, but has finished second in three of the past four national championships. She says she’d like to win one, but the number of women’s three-meter springboard spots on the Olympic diving team is not lost on her--it is precisely two.

Louganis, who was defeated in the three-springboard event last month for the first time since 1981, scored 697.95 in the springboard competition, highlighted by his final dive, a reverse 3 1/2-somersault tuck, which has a difficulty rating of 3.4 (of a possible 3.5). The dive earned eights and nines, for a point total of 92.75. Louganis’ closest competitor on the springboard was Doug Shaffer, who scored 635; Mark Bradshaw, who defeated Louganis last month, scored 606.65. In the platform event, Louganis scored 607.20; Ron Meyer, his closest competitor scored 569.35.