Lichtenstein Takes Home the 3m

Jeff Lichtenstein ('08, Yale) ruined my bold prediction. I had predicted a major upset tonight and I was leaning toward the 3m diving competition as the mode to deliver the bold prediction. I thought that an unknown quantity, most notably freshman Mike Papageorge ('10, Princeton), would come out of nowhere to win the whole thing.

That is until I saw Jeff Lichtenstein dive in the finals.

Although Papageorge proved to the EISL competition that he belonged in the finals as a freshman, it was Lichtenstein that masterfully crafted a program chock full of difficulty and precision. His routine placed him comfortably in first place going into the last dive. However, Papageorge made it very interesting by hitting his final dive to high scores. His statement dive meant that Lichtenstein would need to not only choose a high degree of difficulty on his final dive, but also hit it.

And Lichtenstein did just that.

He selected a dive with a high degree of difficulty registering 3.5 and just narrowly missed nailing it with a slight rotation issue as he entered the water. However, he had certainly done enough to outscore Papageorge and win the competition, by a margin of 359.00 to 347.45.

Excellent spectacle, gentlemen.