Diver Julia Vincent stayed calm during the women’s 3m springboard preliminary diving competition at the Paris Olympics on Wednesday by surfing the web for ideas for her upcoming wedding.
She had not advanced beyond the first round at her previous two Games, but this time her five dives scored a total of 283.50 to rank 13th overall, easily taking her through to Thursday’s semifinals.
“The prelim is always the hardest round for me. That’s where I find I feel most of my nerves,” said the US-based diver, who used her own method to stay relaxed between each round of dives, which take about 30 minutes.
“Today I just listened to some music. I have a wedding next year, so I was just looking. I was like planning my wedding. I was looking at like things on Pinterest,” added Vincent, due to tie the knot with her American fiancé in the US.
“It's fun for me. It takes my mind completely off the, you know, the competition, and it makes me happy. So that's what I was doing today. Sometimes I play games. It just depends on the day.”
Vincent, who finished 10th at last year’s world championships, said she was aiming to enjoy herself.
Bride-to-be Julia surfs wedding ideas to stay calm in Olympic competition
Image: Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
Diver Julia Vincent stayed calm during the women’s 3m springboard preliminary diving competition at the Paris Olympics on Wednesday by surfing the web for ideas for her upcoming wedding.
She had not advanced beyond the first round at her previous two Games, but this time her five dives scored a total of 283.50 to rank 13th overall, easily taking her through to Thursday’s semifinals.
“The prelim is always the hardest round for me. That’s where I find I feel most of my nerves,” said the US-based diver, who used her own method to stay relaxed between each round of dives, which take about 30 minutes.
“Today I just listened to some music. I have a wedding next year, so I was just looking. I was like planning my wedding. I was looking at like things on Pinterest,” added Vincent, due to tie the knot with her American fiancé in the US.
“It's fun for me. It takes my mind completely off the, you know, the competition, and it makes me happy. So that's what I was doing today. Sometimes I play games. It just depends on the day.”
Vincent, who finished 10th at last year’s world championships, said she was aiming to enjoy herself.
Diver Julia Vincent plans to draw curtain on her career in style in Paris
“Big relief off my shoulders. I think the hardest part is just staying steady and making sure that I advance and go on to the next round.
“So that’s what I’m trying to do. Just keep an even keel as much as I can. But I’m very happy with that. I felt very, very nervous this morning and then I came out with warm-up and I felt pretty good ...
“And I’m really just trying to have a great time like this. This is my main goal, to have a great time and really stay present and just take it one dive at a time.”
Vincent, who turns 30 next week, had one below-par dive, on the fourth round, which had the highest difficulty level. “It’s so frustrating because I love that dive actually. But yeah, it’ll come when it needs to come.
“I think right now I know that all I have to do is stay somewhat on my head and I know that will put me in the final.
“I think for the most part, there were some dives, like my first dive actually was better than I was expecting.”
Vincent competes in the semifinals from 10am on Thursday.
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