Mary Ellen Clark

Diving

The family celebration of Mary Ellen Clark’s platform diving bronze medal was missing just one thing: Clark herself.

It was already early Sunday morning when Clark dashed into a restaurant across from the Georgia Tech pool. Flashbulbs popped and the entire place exploded in applause.

The hoopla had officially begun.

Clark gave about 50 of her family and friends reason to celebrate by winning her second straight bronze medal on the 10-meter platform Saturday night. She also finished third in 1992.

The 33-year-old became the oldest Olympic diving medalist, a feat that didn’t seem possible last year.

“A year ago, I didn’t have a bathing suit on,” she said.

She missed most of 1995 with vertigo, which made her too dizzy to dive. The condition first occurred in 1988 and again in 1990.

After months of unsuccessfully searching for a cure, Clark found relief at a clinic in Florida, where she received chiropractic manipulation and massage.

She returned to full workouts last October.

“I took every day like it was going to be my last,” she recalled. “Every dive counted.”

Clark received another blow in April. Her father Gene was diagnosed with cancer. He had his bladder removed and has chemotherapy, but he made it to Atlanta.

In 1992, Gene Clark, who taught his daughter how to dive, missed watching her dive in Barcelona because he was undergoing heart surgery.

Clark said there are two ways face challenges.

“You can rise above them and look at them in a positive way, or you can run the other direction and go, ‘Oh no, why me or why him?”’ she said. “There’s something always to be learned.”