FEET-FIRST DIVING

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4804, 30 June 1939, Page 3

FEET-FIRST DIVING

OLYMPIC COUNCIL’S NEW RULE. The art of diving has been turned upside down—or rather down side up —by a ruling of the governing committee of the 1940 Olympic Games (remarks an American writer). For the first time the American champions and would-be champions are being required to hit the water feet-first instead of head-first. In vain, the divers plead that this is not diving as defined in the dictionary. The Olympic Council has spoken, and America’s A.A.U. —wishing to be prepared for the 1940 Games —has followed suit, made the feetfirst dives compulsory for all competitions till futher notice. In Los Angles, blonde Marjorie Gestring, world champion of the three-metre springboard, is having to learn her speciality all over again. Helen Clenkovich, of San Francisco, the second-ranking woman diver, is hard at work, too, on gymnastics she’d never even heard of. Dangerous Business. “The thing I don’t like about it is the danger to the diver,” says Phil Patterson, professional diving champion and Helen’s coach. “It is a recognised fact that first-feet dives are injurious. “The feet-first stunts are the type

of thing done in gymnastics and tumbling which are so popular in Europe. Europeans believe the new dives give the other countries an edge on the United States. But Americans will learn them all right. Don’t worry about that.” “I have the word of a recognised nose specialist that the continual forcing of water up he nostrils is likely to cause serious and painful sinus trouble. I require every diver I’m coaching to put adhesive tape over the nose and breathe through the mouth.” Competitive diving for men consists of five required dives and five optional ones selected from a recognised list. Women do four compulsory dives and four optional. For both men and women, new Olympic and A.A. U. rules require two feet-first plunges The point score for optional dives is such that, in Patterson’s opinion, several more feet-first must be selected if the athlete hopes to win. The two new dives that everyone, men and women, must do from now on are the running forward flying single somersault and the backward single somersault layout. In both the feet enter the water first.