It wasn’t the result she was hoping for, but Julia Vincent wrapped up her impressive diving career with an 11th place in the Olympic 3m springboard final on Friday.
Vincent had already made history in becoming the first South African to reach an Olympic diving final and after her third dive – a reverse 2½ somersaults pike – which scored her 66.00 points, the 29-year-old was lying in third position.
Her second dive – a back 2½ somersaults pike – was her best of the day, scoring an impressive 67.50 points – her highest total of the three-day competition.
But two disappointing dives to finish meant that Vincent dropped down to 11th spot overall by the end of the afternoon.
The US-based star said afterwards she had tried to keep her mind off the results while the competition was going on.
“I actually thought I was doing a pretty good job… I had no idea where I was after my third round until I just found out now,” she said.
“I wasn't even really watching results, but I knew that I was doing OK. I had a lot of adrenaline and that’s sometimes hard to contain. It is sports, it's how it goes, but I still feel proud, it's just obviously it's tough because it's not what I was hoping for.
“I don't normally get such good take-offs… in competition normally I'm fighting for my life because I'm just trying to make sure I find vertical on the bottom and, like I said, I think adrenaline was definitely pumping today.”
Speaking about her fourth dive, which scored just 38.75 points, Vincent added: “I actually thought I had it, I thought I had it till the end. I just came around and made a small error which takes you a little over, but I really had it until the last millisecond of the dive.”
Vincent said before the competition that this would be her last. She has been by far the most successful South African, competing in three World Championship finals and now one Olympic final. She said she hoped she had been an inspiration to the next generation of divers in the country.
“That's always the goal is to push boundaries and inspire younger generations because I think when you haven't seen it in your country before, people don't believe that it's possible.
“So if I've inspired one little girl to follow their dream, that's enough for me. It means a lot to get to this point and be the person to do that, just because I've put in so much work and I've been really faithful all through it.
“I've always believed that my time will come, and who knows maybe it still will come, but for right now it won't and it didn't today,” she said.