Born to Dive Trivia Quiz

Answer: David Boudia

David Boudia's 2012 gold medal ended an eight-year drought on U.S. diving golds. It also ended an eight-year drought on any diving medals along with the three others the U.S. won that year. Boudia's win was seen as an upset as China's Qiu Bo and Lin Yu were expected to win gold and silver and Britain's Tom Daley was also seen as a stronger competitor than Boudia, especially with the crowd being from Daley's home country. Boudia also barely made it through the preliminary round by securing the last possible spot.

His achievement at the 2012 Games led to a spin-off of the Dutch show "Celebrity Splash", a diving competition show featuring minor celebrities. Boudia was a judge on the show.

Answer: Ilya Zakharov

Zakharov was the defending gold medalist in the 3m springboard during the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro and was seen as a gold medal contender. However, Zakharov faltered in the qualifying round and barely scraped by to the semifinals. In the semifinals, he received a score of zero for one of his dives after he belly flopped into the water. That dive was considered a "no dive". Zakharov explained that his knee had given out which resulted in him getting a poor bounce off of the springboard.

Answer: Cynthia Potter

Cynthia Potter won only one Olympic medal - a bronze at the 1976 Games in Montreal. Those were her third games. She may be more famous, however, for her color commentary (co-commentary) during major diving competitions, a career she began in the 1980s, particularly during the Olympic Games.

She has received praise for her detailed explanations and for helping at-home viewers understand the sport. However, she also received criticism (mainly online and on social media) for commenting throughout the entirety of the dive, which some viewers found distracting.

Answer: He Chong

He Chong won his gold medal in front of a home crowd by a whopping 32 point margin. However, in London, four years later, he only secured the bronze medal. He was expected to return again for the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro but he was ultimately replaced with his younger brother He Chao.

Many experienced Chinese divers were replaced by less experienced, but more youthful divers for the 2016 Olympics. However, He Chao failed to make it past the qualifying rounds in what was largely considered a disappointment.

Answer: Tom Daley

Tom Daley first competed at the 2008 Beijing Olympics at age 14 but he failed to win a medal, finishing 7th in the individual 10m platform and 8th in the platform synchro. However, he became an instant celebrity in the British media and his personal life was closely followed, including the death of his father prior to the 2012 London Games. Daley and his teammate were leading the platform synchro competition at those Olympics, but faltered late in the competition and finished fourth. Daley also rebounded from that competition and a poor performance in the individual platform's qualifying round to win the bronze medal.

He also won a bronze during the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics in the platform synchro competition with Daniel Goodfellow. After finishing first in the qualifying round for the individual platform, Daley crashed out and faltered on three dives during the semifinals and failed to advance to the next round. It was one of many upsets during the diving events at the Rio Games. Daley was a top gold medal contender in the event after having won the 10m platform gold in several other major international competitions including the World Championship and the Commonwealth Games.

Starting in 2013 until the show was canceled in 2014, Daley was a mentor to the celebrity divers on the British version of "Splash!" The show received poor ratings and was canceled after its second iteration.

Answer: Laura Wilkinson

Laura Wilkinson became the first American to win the women's 10m platform since 1964. The event had been an American stronghold with American women sweeping both the gold and silver medals at every Olympics between 1924-1956 (including three medal sweeps). Wilkinson had a foot injury during the 2000 Olympics and performed a number of handstand dives because jumping off the platform was difficult for her.

She scored low in the first dive of the finals but bounced back to narrowly win gold. After her gold-medal winning performance in 2000, subsequent diving competitions saw an increase in the number athletes beginning their dives with handstands, though Wilkinson was, by far, not the first diver to use handstands.

Answer: Chen Ruolin

Despite her back-to-back gold medal wins, Chen Ruolin was not selected by China to compete in the individual 10m platform in favor of two younger divers. She still competed in the 10m platform synchro and won her third gold in that event with her partner Liu Huixia.

She won multiple gold medals at the Aquatic World Championship, FINA Diving World Cup and the Asian Games, among many others.

Answer: Guo Jingjing

Guo Jingjing is known as the 'Princess of Diving' because of all the gold she earned in competitions. Before her retirement in 2011 she won four gold and two silver medals in the Olympics and 10 gold medals at the Aquatic World Championships with five consecutive wins each on the 3m springboard and in the synchro springboard.

Guo Jingjing was a popular athlete in China, although that was not always the case. She was once banned from competing for China for taking in excessive sponsorship deals. She was later allowed to compete because she dominated the competition but she had to turn over the money she earned from the deals to the Chinese government.

Answer: Pandelela Rinong

Previous to the 2012 Olympics, Malaysia had only won medals in badminton and was mostly only competitive in that sport. However, that changed with Rinong's unexpected bronze medal win in the 10m platform. She became an instant hero in Malaysia and diving skyrocketed in popularity.

By the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, Malaysia had become a competitive force in diving. At those Games, Rinong won the silver medal in the 10m synchro platform with her partner Cheong Jun Hoong.

Answer: Greg Louganis

Louganis is one of the most successful American divers of all time. In total, he won four gold medals and one silver at the Olympic Games between 1976-1988. He was expected to perform well in 1980 in Moscow, but he did not attend because the U.S. boycotted the Games. Unusually, he won medals on both the platform and springboard. Nowadays, divers typically compete on just one of those apparatuses, not both.

It was during the preliminary round at the 1988 Games when Louganis hit his head on the springboard and bled into the pool. He suffered a concussion, but still advanced and eventually won the gold medal. Although it was not made public until 1995, Louganis was HIV-positive at the time of the 1988 Games. The stigma at the time led many to believe other divers could have or did contract HIV from using the pool after Louganis bled in it. This is scientifically impractical as the blood was diluted and mere contact with HIV-positive blood is not a means of contraction.

Louganis is openly gay and at the time of his medal wins he was denied a chance to appear on the Wheaties box. This was rectified in 2016. Since his retirement, he became an activist in the LGBT community as well as for HIV and AIDS advocacy.