SLAM! Sports
Commonwealth Games
INTERACTIVE
COMMONWEALTH
ALSO ON SLAM!
A diving art
She knew the knocks: Can't handle pressure. Can't handle crowds. Can't control her emotions. Can't manufacture the big dive when it matters most.
But the Edmontonian who trains in Calgary under Hui Tong, the former great from China, showed them all, and most important, showed herself here last night as she won Commonwealth Games gold for Canada in the women's three-metre springboard event.
More than anything, she had to prove she could control her emotions. She did that when it mattered most. But she carried it right through.
"I didn't cry,'' she said when she climbed down from the podium.
"I tried to sing all the words,'' she said of O Canada. "At the points where I stopped it was because I didn't want to cry. I had to take a breath.''
She said the crying would come as soon as she could race to a phone and call home to mom Susan and dad Derek in Edmonton.
"I'm calling home as soon as I leave here,'' she said after taking a tour of the pool deck in front of the other medallists, instead of trailing as she did when she lost a gold her coach said "she'd have to give away'' and settled for a bronze in the one-metre springboard.
"My mom is going to cry.''
Bulmer was intent on being cool, calm and collected until she left the building.
"This gold means so much to me. I wanted to keep it together in a Games. I've shown everybody I can keep it together.''
She'd wrecked on her third dive, a back two-and-a-half, to the extent that one judge gave her a 2.5 and another a 3.0.
But she didn't let it get to her. She returned to the board and went in like a knife on the next two. The last one was under total pressure following a near-perfect dive by silver medal winner Michelle Chantelle of Australia. Bulmer had to match it. And she did.
"I felt a little bit of anxiety,'' Bulmer confessed. "But I did it. I stayed focused. I stayed relaxed. I knew it had to be a good dive. I shook it all off. I didn't come here to be third and I didn't come here to be second. I had to do it.''
She did it.
"That means a lot,'' said Tong.
"She had a cool mind. Sometimes athletes can freak out. Sometimes athletes can't handle that kind of stress.''
This time she didn't freak out. This time she handled it.
"She gets so excited about it. That's her character. She had to prove she could control the mental part of it and control her energy.
"That was the one. I'm now very confident to say that now she can go to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and get a medal.
"She showed strong character. She has all the diving talent. She has it all. It's getting the mind and the physical together and she did that.''
Bulmer, who finished with a total score of 515.880 to win by eight points, said it was the success she needed.
"This competition is in a Games. A Games is hard for me. There are so many more external distractions. It's a real accomplishment for me today. I don't think I can be much happier.''