- Purdue grad David Boudia won four Olympic medals in 10-meter platform diving.
- At the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis in May, Boudia won the 3-meter springboard title.
WEST LAFAYETTE –Balance means more to David Boudiathan ever before.
After an international career loaded with success on the 10-meter platform— including an Olympic gold medal in 2012 — Boudia continues to find the equilibrium of his new old event, the 3-meter springboard.
Boudia's 3-meter championship at last month's U.S. Nationals— his first on springboard since 2013— qualified him for the 2019 FINA World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, beginning July 12. A top 12 finishwould secure an Olympic Trials berth in the Purdue grad'squest for the 2020 games in Tokyo, which would be his fourth Olympics.
The late-career shift in specialtymeans new muscles to utilize, new competitors to battle. Outside of the rigors of competition, however, Boudia returns to three people who cannot yet distinguish Olympic medals from another toy around the house— his children, Dakoda, Mila and Knox.
"What's exciting about thisjourney to Tokyo is, at the end of the day, they're going to look at this medal orhardware and they're probably going to toss it aside, and they'll care that dad's home," said Boudia, whose oldest child is 5.
LOOKING BACK:Gold medalist David Boudia aims toward 2020 Olympics
"There's a good balance to it, where I go into training and have anawesome practice, I come home and they don’t care. I come home from trainingand havea terrible practice and they are the same. They're just glad I'm home."
The concussion Boudia suffered early last year did not prevent him from continuing with dives from the 10-meter height. However, it did provide a new perspective.
"Whether it's concussionor extremeanxiety up there, I don't think any sane person is going to go up on a three-story building and say, 'Let's do a bunch of flips off of it,'" Boudia said.
Except Boudia, of reputedly sound mind and body, did exactly that for 15 years. Did it better than almost anyone else on the planet. Only after a slight miscalculation and awkward landing in the Morgan Burke Athletics Complex pool 16 months ago did Boudia begin to lose his nerve for the higher dive.
Adam Soldati understands. Purdue's diving coach is the father of six. He dove the 10-meter platform, and knows that 32 mile-per-hour crash into the water's surface takes a toll. He saw how his wife, Kimiko Hirai, also a former competitive diver, could not always hold their children the way she preferred as a result of her five shoulder surgeries.
Soldati considered the move from 10 meters to 3 a prudent one for Boudia, both competitively and personally. He also believes that the added responsibilities of a larger family will make Boudai a better diver.
It comes back to balance.
"Without his faith in God,without his wife and kids, he would be so consumed with this that it could be paralyzing, where it was everything," Soldati said."The negative is, yeah man, now your time and energy is going to be spread. You've got to learn how to manage that."
Boudia is no springboard novice. He won the NCAA 3-meter championship as a freshman and swept the 1- and 3-meter crowns as a sophomore and junior before turning pro.
Soldati believes Boudia's talent level allowed him to win those events at the college level without specializing in the event. To now compete against the best in the world, most or all of whom specialize in the 3-meter alone, a different level of execution is necessary.
On the platform, divers explode out of their stance, with plenty of room between starting point and water in which to execute a dive. On the springboard, they must create that room themselves, thrusting down in order to launch back up above the water.
Boudia joked that younger athletes focused on the platform, while older divers with "tree trunk legs" thrived on the springboard. In the coming months he plans to add additional weight. The biggest training difference for springboard will come in the weight room as he attempts to strengthen his lower body.
Partially due to that combination of grace and power, Boudia considers 3-meter more difficult than 10-meter.
"It's like a dance, kind of," Boudia said."You go on to a platform and you can be a terrible dancerand you look OK. Off springboard, you're aterrible dancer and you're going to stomp the board, you're not going to take off fluidly and gracefully. There's a lot more components to it."
Boudia announced his return to diving in September 2017, then suffered his concussion during training in February 2018.That knocked him out of major competitions for several months.
He erased any notions of being past his prime last month at the Natatorium at IUPUI, compiling a score of 474.35 to win his 21st national title.
Purdue diver Brandon Loschiavo confesses he experienced a "fanboy moment" when he first arrived on campus and met Boudia— let alone dived next to him. The two-time defending Big Ten 10-meter champion's appreciation for his diving and personal role model grew from there.
"Usually, you assume diving is a young man's gamebecause it's so detrimental to your body — especially as long as he's been doing 10 meter," said Loschiavo, who will dive in that event at Worlds next month.
"It shows how truly talented he is. Honestly, I wasn't surprised on any of the results to where he ended up."
Boudia will be 31 during the next Olympic games. He admits, as he works his way back to world-class status on the springboard, the idea of pushing beyond 2020 intrigues him.
That decision will come in time, as he gauges his body's response to the competition ahead. He said platform, regardless of the danger, had also become "mundane" and "a chore." Springboard, with its unique challenges, has rejuvenated Boudia as a diver.
"He's beginningto reallytake off," Soldati said."We're not there yet on 3-meter, but it'sstarting to rise. I think he can go out there and have a great performance."
Boudia, with life in balance, looks at those heights in a new way.
Contact Journal & Courier Purdue men's basketball insider Nathan Baird at nbaird@jconline.com or 765-420-5234. Follow on Twitter: @nbairdjc
