Is the springboard at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games cursed? Following Team USA Alison Gibson’s crash, which landed her a score of zero, team Mexico Aranza Vazquez saw her Olympic dreams quickly dissolve into a nightmare. The Mexican diver also scored 0.0 in the 3-meter springboard event on Thursday (August 8).

Aranza was hoping to secure herself a place in Friday’s (August 9) 3m springboard final with her performance, Unilad reported on Thursday. The 21-year-old was off to a good start, sitting seventh after her third dive.

However, on her fourth dive of the day, Aranza reportedly attempted a couple of backward somersaults at a difficulty level of 3.0, but she appeared to misjudge her takeoff, as per Unilad.

The La Paz native reportedly plummeted into the water, ending in an unnatural position on her back. Former British diver Leon Taylor commented for the first time on the BBC: “Disastrous dive, you could tell that was going to happen.”

Team Mexico Aranza Vazquez saw her Olympic dreams quickly dissolve into a nightmare

Image credits: aranza_vazquez_montano

He continued: “She’s holding her hand up which means she wants to speak to the referee. If the referee thinks the complaint is valid he will allow a restart.

“Otherwise, if he doesn’t think it’s valid, a bit like the false starts in athletics, you can run under protest but there’s no such thing in diving.”

Leon added: “I don’t know what the complaint is so I can’t really comment on the validity of it. I didn’t see any flashes but I’m not on the diving board.

“It’s not really controversial, I think that’s OK from a decision.”

Image credits: CBC

The Mexican diver claimed she was distracted by the crowd during her attempt, but officials weren’t convinced, Eurosport reported on Thursday.

Upon drawing a blank on her fourth dive after plummeting awkwardly into the water, Aranza immediately stuck her hand in the air as she reportedly emerged from the water and demanded to speak to officials.

Despite protests from Aranza and her team, the diver was reportedly unsuccessful with her appeal, and the judges stuck with the decision to award her zero points.

The referee was heard explaining that the noise from the crowd was not made during her dive.

The Mexican diver also scored 0.0 in the 3-meter springboard event on Thursday (August 8)

Image credits: CBC

“I heard the noise before you walked,” the official said, as per Eurosport.

Aranza was reportedly sitting in seventh place after three rounds with a score of 180.70, but she fell down the leaderboard to 18th after not adding to her total in the fourth round.

The Mexican diver finished in 16th place and, unsurprisingly, didn’t qualify for the final, scoring 248.20, Eurosport reported.

“Forwards, gone wrong, crash,” a Eurosport commentator said at the time of the competition. “She is grimacing here as she dives, she knows she is not going to make it.”

Image credits: CBC

The commentator added: “If a diver immediately puts up their hand they’re signaling that they want to speak to the referee, she is protesting. My opinion is that wasn’t a failed dive.”

“She is heartbroken. As you can see, she is a good diver,” Jose Gomez Ruiz, press attaché of the Mexican Olympic delegation, told Reuters after the event. “The only thing she asked me is ‘Please take me out of here.'”

Jose said that Ariana filed a complaint immediately after the dive, as she was distracted by noise from the spectators, which caused her poor performance.

“Right before the judge whistled, she hears a sound that distracts her and she fail(ed) to jump,” Jose told Reuters.

Aranza was reportedly sitting in seventh place after three rounds with a score of 180.70, but she fell down the leaderboard to 18th

Image credits: Eurosport France

The Olympics has a history of athletes complaining about crowd noise. At the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games, Team USSR Aleksandr Portnov advanced to the final with the second-best total in the qualifier. 

However, in his eighth attempt, at the very moment he was leaving the springboard, he was disrupted by a sudden burst of noise from the nearby pool as the audience was cheering for swimmers, the National Olympic Committee of the Republic of Belarus explains.

The jump did not pan out as planned. According to the rules, if a diver faults due to external interference, he is allowed to repeat it. 

Aleksandr, who was leading the scoreboard, could simplify the routine, but knowing that the judges would be biased against him, he decided to demonstrate everything he was capable of, the Belarus Committee states.

Image credits: CBC

And he did it right. The 614,970 points he scored in the final put him out of the reach of others.

On Wednesday (August 7), Team USA’s Alison Gibson scored a disastrous 0.0 at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. 

During the preliminary round of the women’s 3m springboard, her feet collided with the board on the first dive. 

Despite protests from Aranza and her team, the diver was reportedly unsuccessful with her appeal

Image credits: CBC

Moments after the launch, Alison, who was in a tucked position coming out of a somersault at that point, hit the board with her feet. 

Upon landing in the water, her performance was registered as a non-dive. After receiving zero points, the 25-year-old kept going and finished her remaining four dives with as much composure as she could muster, but she still finished last, marking the end of her Olympic journey.

She told reporters at the end of the competition: “I hit my heels and my feet on the board.

#Video| Así fue el clavado que costó la clasificación a Aranza Vázquez 😢🇲🇽

La clavadista originaria de Baja California Sur, Aranza Vázquez, tuvo un grave error en uno de sus saltos y cayó de espaldas.

Los jueces otorgaron una puntuación de 0, por lo que la deportista… pic.twitter.com/NOVl0dveHp

— MetrópoliMx (@metropolimxbcs) August 9, 2024

Video credits: metropolimxbcs

“I have cuts along the sides, and then I bruised my right heel pretty good, but I was determined to keep going.”

Alison reportedly said she “definitely was in pain,” but she kept going because she wanted to set an example to other young athletes who were watching.

At the Olympics, all dives are scored by a panel of judges, NBC’s Olympics website explains. The judges rate the execution (and synchronization for synchro events) of every dive on a scale of 1-10, including half-point margins.

The referee was heard explaining that the noise from the crowd was not made during her dive

Image credits: CBC

Individual diving events are scored by a panel of seven judges. Once all seven judges submit their scores for a dive, the highest two scores and the lowest two scores are eliminated. 

The remaining three scores are added together to achieve the execution score, which is multiplied by the dive’s degree of difficulty to determine the total score of the dive.

Synchronized diving events are scored by a total of 11 judges, NBC’s Olympics website further states.

Image credits: CBC

Three judges focus on scoring the execution of only one individual diver of the pair, while a separate trio of judges focuses on the other individual diver. The remaining five judges score the pair’s synchronization.

Of the 11 total judges’ scores, five are used: the median execution score for Diver 1, the median execution score for Diver 2, and the middle three synchronization scores. 

The five scores are then added together, multiplied by 0.6 (to more closely align with scores from the individual events), and then multiplied by the dive’s degree of difficulty to determine the total score of the dive.

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