ROLLER COASTER RIDE FOR AUSTRALIAN DIVERS

The competitive life of an elite level sportsperson, with very few exceptions, is inevitably a roller coaster ride of emotions.

There will be days they feel on top of the world, bullet proof and unbeatable; and then there will be days that, well, could have turned out a lot better.

17-year-old Lara Tarvit provided the bright spark for Australian diving on the second day of competition at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

In her time as an elite diver she’s made a name for herself as a platform synchro specialist, with her long-time diving partner Emily Boyd.

But she is also an outstanding individual diver, with unlimited potential. She regularly goes out hard in platform competitions, having perfected a couple of opening dives that are now, in 2014, world class.

It’s in the latter stages of competition that Lara has sometimes struggled, and it was the case again in Thursday’s platform preliminaries when she tumbled down the leaderboard after eye-catching starts.

But in the early hours of Friday morning, Australian time, Lara Tarvit showed us what she is truly capable of. As usual her opening two dives were special and she found herself top two.

But then, as her fellow Australian competitors struggled (more on that shortly), Lara gritted her teeth and, sensing the hopes of a nation wrested on her young shoulders, put together a back end to her program that almost netted her a medal.

Her fourth placing, following on from an eighth at the World Cup earlier this month, should give the Queenslander great hope for next year’s World Championships and Rio in 2016.

Rachel Bugg appeared to struggle with her timing in both the preliminary and finals of the platform. In true Rachel style she battled on, and showed true character when she finished her final strongly.

And our two most highly credentialed divers competing on Thursday? Grant Nel and Melissa Wu, both strong medal prospects in their 3-metre and platform events respectively, had their dreams shattered by split seconds of misfortune.

First it was Grant, the ever-focused Grant, pulling together all his strength and composure for one of the most difficult springboard dives, only to slip on the last step.

Such are the rules with diving that as long as you achieve the number of rotations you set out to do, you will attract a score, no matter how ugly the landing.

Unfortunately for Grant the slip meant he missed one of his required spins – and that equates to a no jump, a nought in the scoreline.

It meant Grant completed the prelims with one less dive than everyone else, a hopeless situation for the Victorian who less than 24 hours earlier was celebrating his bronze medal in the 1-metre.

And then hours later Australia’s top platform prospect, Melissa Wu, suffered a similar fate. In her first dive in the final the 21-year-old also slipped.

It could have ended really badly, but somehow Melissa was able to land in the water safely, feet first.

It meant another nought for an Australian. You might go for months between incidents like this happening in top level diving; to have it happen twice in one day, to divers from the same country, is bad luck personified.

After Melissa’s mishap, the British commentator pondered if the Olympic and Commonwealth medalist would return for the rest of her competition.

That she did impressed him enormously.

“I take my headphones off to her, that takes a lot of courage,” he told his audience of millions.

Like Grant in the morning, to pull out because of one mistake would have been an admission of defeat. And both divers have shown during their stellar careers defeat is never accepted without a scrap.

Australia’s final diver competing Wednesday, 19-year-old Domonic Bedggood, had a good workout in the 3-metre preliminaries ahead of his preferred events, the individual and synchro platform.

He dived below his best, but as an exercise in exposing him to the big time it achieved all it set out to do. Expect a much more relaxed and confident diver when he climbs the big stairs tonight.