Synchronized Diving Unlike synchronized swimming, its much-mocked counterpart, synchronized diving employs no corny music, no waterproof makeup and no sequins. But like the sport Esther Williams made famous, synchronized diving requires tremendous precision. Two divers must leave the board at the same instant, mirror each other’s flips and turns then hit the water in unison. This is especially challenging because few of the pairs who will be competing have practiced together. In fact, the U.S. synchronized divers will be drawn from the regular diving team and won’t be matched up until Sydney. That will make it doubly tough to be in sync against the world-dominant Chinese.
At 5 feet 9 and 300 pounds, Cheryl Haworth (above) has the perfect body–for a weight lifter. It’s not just that the 17-year-old can hoist more than 300 pounds above her head; she is also limber and agile. She can run 40 yards in five seconds flat and do a split. Of the four women representing the United States in Sydney, she is the medal favorite. Her toughest competition comes from Agata Wrobel of Poland and Wang Yanmei of China. (Wang, who lifted 356 pounds in competition this year, is a world-record holder.) There are seven weight classes for women, starting with flyweight; the men have eight. Haworth is in the superheavyweight group. She is proud of her 32-inch thighs and that she can bench-press nearly 500 pounds. “I go to the gym every day and lift a couple of tons,” Haworth says casually. Actually, she’s being modest; on a typical day in her Savannah, Ga., gym she’ll lift as much as 25 tons. Her idea of a joke is to pick up and move a friend’s car across the school parking lot. Now she’ll go to Sydney and throw her weight around.
When Jennifer Parilla (above) was 5, her parents got so tired of her bouncing on the furniture that they bought her trampoline lessons. In Sydney the 19-year-old will be the only U.S. contender in the trampoline. None of the men made it. Like gymnastics, trampoline is scored subjectively. Height, a catlike landing in the center of the mat and artistry all factor in. Parilla, who is 5 feet 2, can fly twice as high as the rim of a basketball hoop. While in the air, trampolinists have to exhibit 10 skills per jump. To be competitive with the Eastern Europeans, Parilla will try a triple somersault.
When Stacy Dragila first tried the pole vault in college, the conventional wisdom was that women did not have the upper-body strength to compete in the high-flying event. Now the United States is sending three female pole vaulters to Sydney–including Dragila (right), 29, who is favored to win. Women took up the sport competitively on college campuses about five years ago and don’t approach the heights of men. The men’s world record is 20 feet 1 inches. Dragila holds the women’s mark at 15 feet 2 inches. She has set her sights on 16 feet Down Under.
First things first: it’s not the triathlon–it’s just plain “triathlon.” This may seem like a little thing, but slip up in front of Australians, who take this grueling sport very seriously, and they might feed you to the sharks in Sydney Harbor. Most Americans associate triathlon with the fabled Ironman competition, a nine-hour swimming-biking-running Super Bowl for maniacs and masochists. But the Olympic version, debuting on the turf of the folks who do it best, is slightly more humane. In Sydney, men will complete a much shorter race through the streets of downtown in a little under two hours; the first few women will cross the finish line about 15 minutes later. One point of controversy: Olympic competition is “draft-legal,” meaning racers are allowed to follow close behind each other in the swim and bike portions, thereby cutting down wind resistance and conserving energy. Proponents say the rule places a premium on strategy and teamwork. The opposing view: this ain’t a team sport.
