outspeaker

At 37, our man from Havana finally to get feet wet in Olympic diving


Dave Stubbs,           The Gazette

             Published: Monday, August 11, 2008
BEIJING - Arturo Miranda is crossing his fingers and touching wood, not yet entirely convinced that he's finally going to compete in the Olympic Games.

Miranda will dive Wednesday (1:30 a.m., CBC) in the three-metre synchronized event with fellow Canadian Alexandre Despatie, eager to take part in what will be his first and last Olympics.

The 37-year-old native of Havana, the oldest diver from any nation in Beijing, was competing a year before Despatie was born.

Now, after 30 years in the sport and 16 years since he first knocked on the Olympic door, Miranda is only days from the most important six dives of his life.

He and Despatie, international medallists every time they've pooled their talents, are less than dark horses to visit the Beijing podium.

"That's realistic," Miranda said Saturday after a workout at the Water Cube. "We've been on the podium of every competition we've done, so we're not freaking out or going too crazy.

"I'm going to be really nervous, but very eager. We know we can do well."

If the Montrealer feels snake-bitten in the Olympic arena, he has the fang marks to prove it. Three times he's been within view of the Games; three times the chance has slithered away.

There was Barcelona in 1992, when he qualified for the Cuban team, but stayed home when money was tight and he wasn't considered a strong enough medal contender.

Miranda quit the sport in 1993 and dived professionally to earn a few pesos, then came to Canada in '95. He was ineligible to compete for his adopted home in Atlanta the following year, and even with his citizenship in hand at Sydney in 2000, the International Olympic Committee would not clear him to compete when Cuba refused his release, not enough time having elapsed since he quit his homeland.

And then Miranda placed third in the Canadian trials for Athens in 2004, missing the squad by a single spot.

His personal life made ugly headlines the following year when he was suspended for six months by Diving Canada for an alleged violation of the sport's code of conduct. Miranda appealed, the ban was lifted and he subsequently was cleared by a Canadian sports-resolution dispute body.

He never was legally charged.

Finally, Miranda qualified with Despatie for this Olympics in the synchro event, guaranteed a trip to the event he's worked toward his entire diving life. And then he watched incredulously when his partner broke his foot in April and was questionable for Beijing.

"I knew Alex was going to be ready," Miranda said, perhaps even believing it. "It was a little frustrating, a setback to our preparation, but we worked on stuff we couldn't when we were competing all the time.

"If Alex had been injured any later, it would have been a disaster."

Miranda said he's never had anything more serious than a hamstring strain through his three-decade career. Again, he touches wood.

He comes from strong stock. His father, Arturo, was a wrestler in Cuba, where he still lives; his mother, Marixa, was a national-calibre diver who today resides in Toronto.

He and Despatie are more than partners on the board, they're great friends. And they're nicely suited to each other as athletes in their synchronized event.


"The Cuban/Canadian style is more one of being smooth and powerful than just quick," Miranda said. "Our styles and physical similarities are not bad. I've been diving so long, I can imitate a guy."

He laughs.

"So I've adapted to Alex, not him to me. Come on, he's the world champion."

Both divers are eager to compete in what should be a wild venue. The Cube seats 17,000 and every chair will be filled, the vast majority by knowledgeable, partisan Chinese diving fans who still appreciate a good effort no matter its flag.

Miranda will take a step back after Beijing and expects to get more serious with his coaching. But first comes his Olympics, a contest that could blow the doors off the record book. Judges might react to the energy of the spectators with generous, historic marks.

"The scores are going to be high," Miranda said. "The crowd likes that, and everybody wants to see the big scores. I think we'll see records set here."

Despatie relishes the opportunity to dive alongside his old, Olympic-deprived friend, seeing their potential as a fine source of motivation.

And if it leads to a medal?

"It would mean the world to me," Despatie said. "I've been with Arturo on his Olympic journey only since 2000. He's wanted all this time to dive and now he has the chance. We have the potential to (win a medal) in his first and last Olympics."

For Miranda, the contest won't come soon enough.

"I'm ready," he said. "I was ready yesterday."

Note: China's Guo Jingjing and Wu Minxia opened the diving competition yesterday by winning the women's three-metre synchro event. The pair's score of 343.50 points distanced Russia's Julia Pakhalina and Anastasia Pozdnyakova (silver) by 19.89 and Germany's Ditte Kotzian and Heike Fischer (bronze) by 24.60. Canada had no entry. The men's 10-metre synchro (no Canadians) will be held today. Canada's Meaghan Benfeito and Roseline Filion will dive in the women's 10-metre synchro event tomorrow (1:30 a.m., CBC).

Dave Stubbs of The Gazette is in Beijing as part of the Canwest News Service Olympic Team

dstubbs@thegazette.canwest.com

outspeaker

By Mike Lopresti, Gannett News Service

BEIJING — Before your television screen fills up with gymnasts young enough to bring teddy bears to the Olympics, can we hear it for the geezers? This is their moment, too, and we don't mean just Dara Torres swimming at the age of 41, because she's only a kid.
The USA also has a 58-year-old sailor. John Dane III, the old salt, has been trying to get to the Olympics for 40 years. Long enough to father seven children and have nearly everything he owned blown away by Hurricane Katrina.

Japan has a 67-year-old rider in equestrian. Hiroshi Hoketsu also competed in another Olympics — in 1964.

He's in the dressage. I'm not exactly sure what that is, but I bet John Wayne couldn't have done it at 67.

Torres ... Dane ... Hoketsu. Never mind higher, faster, stronger. Try old, older and oldest. It's a fine Olympics for athletes who can remember life without e-mail.

"I just want to go out there for those 40something year olds and show them age is just a number," Torres said. This was the same press conference, by the way, where she mentioned her younger teammates occasionally interrupt her daily nap.

One year after Torres was born, Dane tried for his first Olympics in 1968 and finished second in the trials. The winning crew invited him to go along to Mexico City as an alternate. But he had a summer job, and who wanted to be an alternate? No, thanks.

Turns out, someone got sick in Mexico. Dane could have been sailing in the Olympics as a teenager instead of waiting until he was eligible for AARP.

"I've been kicking myself for 40 years," he said over the phone Thursday. "When you get that close, it's painful."

Dane's seen other pain. He became a prosperous businessman in the New Orleans area with companies that built yachts and Navy patrol boats, and a new home in suburban Mississippi that he and his wife had spent 18 months of their lives to build.

Katrina claimed them all. Pictures, keepsakes, everything. The man built his life around water, but the sea giveth and the sea taketh away.

"Three years later," he said, "I'll still go to the closet and look for a certain shirt and realize that was pre-Katrina. I don't have that anymore."

"We lived on the water and there were 440 homes. Two have been rebuilt. My wife and I don't even like to go down there. Too many bad memories."

So Dane built another home elsewhere, restored his businesses — he gave every employee an emergency stipend and furnished cars and temporary trailers — and kept sailing, with son-in-law Austin Sperry as his crew.

Lifetime mission completed. Finally. All seven kids and his wife will be here to watch.

"I've been successful in a lot of things," he said. "But getting to the Olympics was a dream that was unfulfilled. The Opening Ceremony is going to be one of the greatest moments of my life."

Hoketsu won't even be there. The equestrian competition is 1,200 miles away in Hong Kong, and as an attendant at the Japanese Olympic Committee office mentioned, Hoketsu is a little old to be traveling around like that.

He's the senior athlete in the Beijing Olympics, which probably works best in equestrian. Just so long as his horse is not 67.

"I remember very well how I did. But besides that, not much," Hoketsu said of 1964. "Most of my colleagues from then are already dead. The only one still alive is me."

"It looks like my age makes me a little bit known to the people, which is not too bad."

Before he retired as a president of a pharmaceutical company in Tokyo, every workday started with two hours of riding at 5:30 a.m. Maybe it keeps a CEO healthy, spending as much time with horses as he does with his accountants.

"I think so. I hope so. Everybody says so. I will continue to ride until my physical condition makes it impossible. You never know. You can get old. Something."

But not yet. This too, is part of the Beijing Olympics, along with the smog and the medal count and China's human rights record. Some have come here for the chance to be young.