The once dominant U.S. men’s and women’s diving teams suffered their worst performance ever at the Athens Olympics, shut out from medals for the first time since diving was introduced at as an Olympic sport 92 years ago. (“Chinese dive to record haul”, AFP/Independent Online (South Africa), Aug. 29). Why the falloff? “After a golden age in the seventies — a decadent, late-Roman last hurrah — the American pool has suffered a gradual decline: thanks, for the most part, to concerns about safety and liability, diving boards have been removed and deep ends undeepened. At municipal pools across the country, the once-ubiquitous one-metre springboard has become an endangered species; and the three-metre high dive — the T. rex of the community pool — is now virtually extinct. … Ron O?Brien, U.S.A. Diving?s national technical director, and the former coach of Greg Louganis, said last week, ‘You can’t put your finger on any one thing, but having so many diving boards taken out around the country has had a serious impact on our sport, no question about it.'” (Field Maloney, “Cannonball!”, The New Yorker, Aug. 30 issue (posted Aug. 23))(via Common Good)(more about pool and diving liability).

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