Olympic Diving Results / Watch Replay / Photo Gallery / Boilermakers in Rio
RIO DE JANEIRO -- Purdue alumnus David Boudia won a bronze medal on 10-meter, his fourth career Olympic medal, in the final diving event of the 2016 Olympic Games on Saturday.
Boudia scored 525.25 points in the finals for the 10-meter bronze medal, finishing behind China's Chen Aisen (585.30) and Mexico's German Sanchez (532.70).
Purdue's Steele Johnson finished 13th in 10-meter semifinals Saturday morning, one place shy of a spot in the finals. Johnson's semifinal list score of 447.86 was six points shy of 12th place and the final berth in the finals.
Boudia and Johnson won silver together in synchronized 10-meter in the first men's event of the Olympic Games 12 days ago. With gold and bronze medals in the 10-meter events four years ago in London, Boudia accomplished the rare double medal feat in consecutive Olympics. China's Hu Jia and Tian Liang were the last divers to medal individually on 10-meter in consecutive Olympics Games (2000-04). However, since synchronized diving was added to the Olympic program in 2000, Liang is the only other men's 10-meter diver to win four medals over consecutive Olympics.
"It's been a long 24 hours. You do the prelims last night. It's a three-hour event and then you have to turn around the next morning and try to be on it. Then you have to do it again in the finals," Boudia said. "You're doing 18 dives off a three-story building. Your body's beat up, you're tired, mentally exhausted, but I'm glad to be standing here with a bronze medal around my neck. It could have gone differently, but I'm glad this is the way it turned out."
.@DavidBoudia​ teared up when asked about his main source of motivation - his daughter. https://t.co/3nZ10QtWAW https://t.co/vZuMxkrMPv
-- NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) August 21, 2016
Boudia became the first American man to medal on 10-meter in consecutive Olympics since Greg Louganis won gold in 1984 and 1988. When Boudia won silver in the synchronized event last week, he became Team USA's first male diver to medal in consecutive Olympics since Mark Lenzi (3-meter) in 1992 and 1996. He was the only American diver to medal in an individual event in Rio.
"I walked away from this Olympic Games with two medals," Boudia said. "Two-for-two. This one's bronze. It's pretty special to be able to share this with USA Diving, my wife, my daughter, my family. It's pretty cool, at my last two Olympics, I've done four events and have four medals."
Boudia, the 2012 Olympic champion on 10-meter, almost didn't have a chance to win that fourth medal. He had to rally to qualify for the finals after struggling in the semifinals Saturday morning, finishing 10th to grab one of 12 spots into the finals.
Heading into the finals, Boudia made a decision to change his dive order in hopes it would work to his advantage. He had missed his most difficult dive, a front 4 ½ tuck, in both the preliminaries and semifinals. He normally does the dive in the middle of his list, but chose to put it as his last dive in the finals.
"I think the last dive was more a tactical decision. If it was in the middle of my list (in finals), it could have put my performance on a downhill slant," Boudia said. "We wanted to go in with five dives that we knew we could hit, so we were extremely confident that we could do that. I hit five decent dives. A couple of them were awesome, other ones were OK. But I had five dives that gave me confidence going in."
2012 gold medalist @DavidBoudia takes bronze in men's 10m platform in #Rio2016! https://t.co/3nZ10QtWAW https://t.co/RvwqZomLo2
-- NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) August 21, 2016
Boudia hit each of his first five dives for more than 80 points, including a fifth-round back 2 ½ somersault with 2 ½ twists that scored 102.60 points that put him in second place, 15.3 points ahead of third and 30.45 points ahead of fourth place, with the front 4 ½ still to come.
He finished with just 68.25 points on the 4 ½ tuck. Although Sanchez overtook him for silver, it was enough to keep him on the podium.
"This dive has been a thorn in my side the last four years. My takeoff is absolutely perfect, but I cannot find the bottom to save the life of me," Boudia said. "I chose to do it at the end of this competition because I wanted that pressure. I live off those nerves, and I wanted that. It just didn't go my way."
Johnson's best dive came in the final round, when his back 2 ½ with 2 ½ twists scored 82.80 points. He scored between 70 and 77 points on each of his other five dives.
"It's the nature of the beast. I feel like I've been through this before. I've gotten fourth place a lot of times, and 13th is just the same to me. Just missing out on the podium or the final by just a little bit always stings," Johnson said. "It's frustrating, but at the same time, I just wasn't on today."
Johnson is already looking ahead to Tokyo and said his results in the individual competition will provide extra motivation.
"I'm happy with where I ended up because it's going to be the best thing for me. It's going to make me hungry so when I come back in four years, I'm going to have so much fire under me and be a lot more relentless in this competition," Johnson said.
-- Story by Jen Lowery, USA Diving