A light rain drizzled from the gray afternoon sky as
Kristian emerged from the locker room at Larkey Park Swim Center.
He briefly took a seat in a large tub of warm water to remove the chill
from his body and then began a familiar climb up the ladder, inching
closer and closer to the edge of the diving board. It's an ascension
he's made thousands of times, yet it still generates a stirring feeling in
the pit of his stomach, and sometimes, if he's up high enough, he
finds himself fighting pangs of "I can't go."
But not on this day. Instead, Kristian begins to bounce higher and higher
until the momentum sends him soaring into the air. As he reaches the
apex of the jump, he effortlessly bends his body, touches his
toes and straightens out just in time to plunge into the water,
generating only a small splash.
"You want to make it wind up like it looks easy," Kristian, a Clayton
native, said. "It's an incredible sensation.
I love the adrenaline rush."
Kristian, a freshman at De La Salle High School in Concord, CA., is already considered one
of the top young divers in the country and boasts Olympic dreams. He's
qualified for the U.S. Olympic trials, traveled the world from
Malaysia to Puerto Rico, and beginning Friday, is representing the United
States at the China Open, a grand prix meet in Shenzhen.
Pretty impressive for a 15-year-old who loves movies, ice cream and
"Guitar Hero."
It's a tricky tightrope to navigate, being a world-class athlete and a
self-aware teenager adjusting to life on Winton Drive, but Kristian has had
plenty of practice finding his way.
Kristian's journey to the pool began with his parents' simple desire to
give him something to do during the summer months. Kristian tried swimming
first, but he quickly grew tired of the monotonous back-and-forth and
began to wonder, "Is this it?"
Diving was the next option. "He went off the board and thought it was the best thing in the world,"
Kristian's father, Kent, said. "We never expected he'd be world caliber."
It didn't take long for them to realize he was headed in that
direction. By the time Kristian was 8, he went from yawning at the top of the tower
to becoming the youngest diver to make the national finals on the 1-
and 3-meter springboards and the 10-meter platform.
At 10, he was a national champion. And three years after that, Kristian --
all 95 pounds of him -- found himself standing alongside four-time
Olympian Dmitri Sautin and Canada's Alexandre Despatie, a silver medalist
at the 2004 Athens Games, at a meet in Germany.
It remains to be seen if Kristian's skills will translate into a ticket to
the Beijing Olympics. At this point, Tonne said he is a "super, super
long shot," adding the 2012 London Games are more realistic. But the
window for Beijing is still cracked open.
Finding success at such a young age hasn't always been easy for Kristian.
In the beginning, he struggled with the idea of competing against
divers twice his age, often over-thinking the dives and "stressing about
everything." Now, he's learned to take a deep breath and embrace his
position as an up-and-comer with nothing to lose.
"Right when I started, I was stressed because I was intimidated," Kristian
said. "I'm chasing guys right now. I'm more of an underdog trying to
catch the other ones. It's a nice position, actually. ... I'm not 28.
This isn't my last chance. But I'm still going to try my hardest to make
this one, of course."
Last month, Kristian received an invitation to the 2008 World Cup
selection camp, where he joined the likes of Finchum and Olympians Laura
Wilkinson and Troy Dumais. Though he narrowly missed the cut, Kristian did set
two personal bests and gained more valuable experience to take with him
along the way.
"At 15 years old, it's only going to make him better," Tonne said. "The
more he does it, the more comfortable he gets. And the more he'll
believe he can actually be there."
[return to Gay Surf Report]
