U.S. Junior Olympic Diving Championships : Panaro Surprises Himself With Another Win

The news had come to its target via double messenger, and not only was it very unexpected and very speedily expressed, but it was very, very good.

Only moments after he had finished his 11 dives Saturday, Dean Panaro of Cincinnati was showering in a locker room near the pool at Heritage Park in Irvine, all but convinced that his faulty final dive had shoved him into third place.

It was then that two young girls raced over to the locker room’s threshold and began calling for him to come out. He did, and was told by excited voices and hugging arms that he had taken first place.

Panaro said the girls, who are friends of his, had peeked at the judges’ score cards.

A few minutes later, the news was official, and Panaro, 16, had won his second straight gold medal, this one in three-meter diving, in the U.S. Junior Olympics Diving Championships.

Panaro, who competes in the boys’ 16-18 age group, easily won his first championship Friday in the one-meter dive. Saturday’s wasn’t nearly as easy.

“I did badly my last dive and didn’t think that I had won,” said Panaro, who competes for Cincinnati’s Red Roof Inn team. “It was really surprising, but when I found out, I was really happy.

“I did three dives that weren’t so good, but going into to the last round, I thought I could win it. But then (Edward Morse) had a really good dive, and I didn’t. I thought I was third.”

Indeed, one of Panaro’s poorer dives had received scores only of 4s, and another only a set of 5s. However, the majority of his earlier dives had been scored in the 6.5- to 8-point range on a scale of 10. One judge even awarded him a 9 for his ninth dive.

But his final dive, a reverse 1 1/2 somersault with 3 1/2 twists, was given only marks of 5.5. The the dive’s lofty 3.3 difficulty factor gave Panaro 54.45 points, raising his total to 521.25. Morse finished second with 513 points.

Not bad for Panaro’s second-best event. On Friday, he said he preferred the one-meter to the three-meter diving because he can’t “rip very well,” meaning he has difficulty hitting the water with a relatively small splash. Saturday, though, he was ripping without roaring through some of his optional dives.

“On some of the optional dives I got into the water clean,” said Panaro, who does better at optional dives than required dives. “But (Friday) I felt more in control, leading throughout the meet. I did my harder dives better, and that pumped me up. When you start out good, that helps a lot. Today I felt more pressure to do good dives.”

Charlie Casuto, who coaches Panaro, doesn’t think his diver will have a better time today as the meet concludes with boys’ and girls’ 16-18 platform diving.

“He doesn’t rip well,” Casuto said. “On tower, you have to.”

Diving Notes

Ricky Wood, who competes for the Los Angeles Diving Team, won the boys’ 14-15 platform with 288.25 points. . . . Genna Weiss of Mission Bay won the girls’ 14-15 platform championship with 300.60 points. But only five-hundredths of a point in the same event separated third place Krista Clark of Cincinnati from Susie Mullaney of Mission Viejo, who was fourth. . . . Diving under the lights Saturday evening, Houston’s Kelly Jenkins won the girls’ 16-18 one-meter championship with 390.15 points.