Nadezhda Bazhina is a decorated diver. The Russian has won six gold medals in the European Championships, two of which were from the event that she attempted above. But, the 28-year-old turned from one of the greatest in the world to ‘drunk uncle trying to impress the cousins with a pool dive.’
In the preliminary round for the 3 meter springboard event, Bazhina lost her footing and instead of doing three and a half somersaults, she backflopped hard into the pool. She scored zeroes across the board.
A BBC commenter described the catastrophe:
‘So what happened is Bazhina’s landed with basically one foot on the board, the other one has slipped right off the side, and that’s killed her take-off. No height.’
‘Wow. That is calamitous.’
I had to look up that word.
The judges:
