World Champion & Olympic Gold Medalist Laura Wilkinson Dives Continues Winning as a Mom & Coach

I found my home

So you’ve been diving for a long time now. I think you started at the age of 15. And I mean, you have such a long list of accomplishments, world championship titles, Olympic gold medals, dozens of national titles, NCAA titles. What was it about diving that grabbed your attention?

Well, see, I was a gymnast growing up a long time ago. I’m going to date myself a little bit, but,  I saw Mary Lou Retton do that perfect 10 vault at the 1984 Olympics. Yeah. I’m like, I want a 10. I want to stand on the podium. Like that’s what I want. And so I pursued gymnastics like every other little girl and loved it. But, you know, when I was about 13, I kind of reality hit and I knew that I wasn’t going to be Mary Lou level in gymnastics.

But that dream and that desire of like wanting to go to the Olympics was still very much there. So I just kind of set off to find another sport that I could do it in. So I tried a bunch of different things over the next couple of years and It wasn’t until the end of my freshman year of high school, I ran into some ex gymnast friends that had found their way to a diving pool and invited me to come check it out.

And so, I mean, the first day I stepped onto the deck and saw the pool nestled in the trees and the music was blaring and it was gymnastics in the water. I was just like, this is my home. Like, I belong here. It just was an instant fit.