My struggles the previous night helped remind me that God was sovereign, and that his plan was perfect. True, I didn’t do so hot in the prelims, but maybe that was to get me to focus more on God than on myself. Talking to the media afterward helped me to process those kinds of thoughts and get my attitude where the Lord wanted it to be. I realized that I had been focused on results in the preliminaries, and my performance suffered for it.
After the semifinals concluded, I had only a few hours before the finals later that night, where the top twelve divers would be chasing the gold. We went back to the Olympic Village to try to rest, but it’s hard to recuperate so quickly. I iced and got a massage to help with the physical preparation. But the spiritual preparation was more important. I spent most of the time between the semis and the finals with Adam, and he helped me get my thoughts centered on Christ. We played some Ping-Pong, and I took a nap before getting ready. As I did, an extreme bout of nervousness overwhelmed me. That was uncharacteristic. I’d been in high-level competitions before and had not struggled with nerves like this for a long time.
I texted Nick Lees, a close friend of mine who was a pastoral intern at my church. “I don’t know why I’m so nervous,” I told Nick. His response humbled and sobered me. “David, what is there to be nervous about?” he asked me. “God has already walked through this. He already knows what has happened in this event. What you get to do is be a vehicle for his glory. So go out there and do whatever it takes to glorify him.”
Even now it gives me chills to think about those words, because they’re true. God knew what was going to happen. It was already written down. My role was to reflect him and honor him. That truth provided better perspective as I headed into the finals. My nerves settled, and we returned to the pool for a night that would change my life, though I didn’t know it at the time.
Nothing would change in the final line-up. Same six dives. Same exact order. In that sense, it wasn’t anything different from what I had done in several previous meets. But this was an Olympic final, and anytime you go into a final, there’s always a different atmosphere. The crowd is larger and louder. Your heart beats that much harder. You jump that much higher. You spin that much faster. I wasn’t nervous, but I was excited.
My warm-up was terrible. I got out of the water when it was over and looked at Adam, knowing that it was quite possibly my worst warm-up ever. Despite that, I was ready. Let’s go do this thing, I thought. Let’s go to the Olympic finals and put on a show. I left the warm-up behind me and got into my rhythm once again.
My positioning couldn’t have been better. Diving right before me was Tom Daley, the enormously popular teenage British diver competing in front of a hometown crowd. Tom was one of the poster boys for the entire 2012 Olympics. Like me, he struggled in the preliminaries before bouncing back in the semifinals, placing fourth, right behind me. Immediately after me on the dive list were the two Chinese divers, Qiu Bo and Lin Yue, who were expected to compete for medals. The Chinese have dominated men’s diving for years, so much that divers from pretty much every other country root for any country but them in competitions. We have nothing against them personally; they’re outstanding divers. They’re just so good that the rest of us have grown weary of them beating us.
While that positioning was challenging, and while it’s not easy to have eighteen thousand people cheering against you, I love that kind of pressure. I thrive on it. I’d think, Tom’s shooting for 10s on a dive, so I’m going to get up there immediately afterward and outdo him. I think that’s what all elite athletes crave: top-level competition from opponents who push you to do your best.
I was preparing for my first dive after Tom, going through my routine, looking at Adam the way I do before takeoff every time. I threw my towel down and stepped toward the edge of the platform when I saw Tom’s coach waving me off. What the heck is going on? I thought. I stepped back while he walked around the platform to talk to an official. This kind of disruption can really mess up your rhythm if you’re not careful. Instead of freaking out, though, I simply reset. I walked down the stairs and stood on the 5-meter platform to await the outcome of this conversation. Kimiko was sitting nearby, and we caught each other’s eye, which helped to relieve the pressure and distraction for me.
Tom’s coach thought Tom should get a re-dive because he was distracted by camera flashes during his first attempt. Re-dives are not common, but the judges granted the request. That decision was not something I could control, so I brushed it off. Let him do the dive, I thought. I’m going to get ready for my own.
Starting off well sets the stage for the rest of the competition. And this one started off well for me. I nailed my first dive, probably the best I’ve ever done it, posting a score of 97.20 that tied me with Germany’s Martin Wolfram for first place after the round. From that point on, my adrenaline was pumping and I was amped up. You can’t really explain when you get in the zone or how you get there. Everything just seems to work out perfectly. And that’s what I experienced in the finals.
After hitting the water on my first attempt, I got into my routine and followed it the rest of the way. I connected with Adam to get any corrections or suggestions. Then I ran past the area where the athletes and coaches sat on the pool deck. My entire team cheered me on as I jogged by. I then walked into my warm-up area, a separate room off the pool deck, and put on my headphones, drowning out the boisterous noise of the crowd with the sounds of Lecrae’s album Rehab. I sat there and played a game called Tiny Wings on my phone. I peeked out at the scoreboard every so often so I knew when it was my turn to dive again.
When there were four or five divers left ahead of me, I began to get prepared. I turned off my music, put my phone down, warmed up by shaking out my legs and stretching, and headed back to the pool deck. Adam gave me my cues for the next dive. I climbed the platform and waited for my turn to hurl myself off a three-story building into the water. That process repeated itself six times during the competition.
My second dive dipped a little from my first one, dropping me to third place. I annihilated my third dive. A score of 99.9 (which ended up being the third-best dive in the entire competition) moved me back into first. Though I wasn’t watching the scoreboard to see where I placed, I knew I was diving well. And I knew that when I dive the best that I can, I have a good chance of getting on the podium.
My fourth dive was the one that was so shaky in the prelims. In the back of my mind I thought, What if I miss this dive again? But this was a great opportunity for me, as a follower of Christ and an athlete, to speak truth into thoughts like that. I always run to 2 Corinthians 10:5 when I feel my thoughts drifting toward doubt and worry: “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.” Because my identity is found in Christ, I can take every thought captive and see if it is in line with what God would have me think in this type of situation. I examine it to see if it glorifies God. This time, I shut down my doubts about the fourth dive.
That night the dive was not as strong as my third dive, mostly because the degree of difficulty was not as high, but it was solid. Once I went in the water on that fourth dive, I felt weightless. I didn’t have any worries about rounds five and six because I was comfortable and confident about those dives.
Despite my confidence, my fifth dive could have been better. Tom Daley had gone before me and posted an amazing 97.2. After my scores were posted, I heard this enormous uproar from the crowd. They weren’t cheering for me. They were cheering because after my score of 91.8, Tom had moved into the lead in an incredibly tight competition. Going into the last dive, Tom, with a total score of 466.2, was barely ahead of Qiu Bo and me, tied at 466.05.
What a finish! A three-way battle for the gold, with one dive left to go, and three divers separated by a miniscule 0.15 points. The London Aquatics Centre pulsated with energy. This was one of the most exciting and fascinating Olympic diving finals ever, and I was right in the middle of it.
My routine stayed the same before my sixth dive. Tom’s final dive was amazing, but a lower degree of difficulty meant he didn’t score as high as other divers. Of the twelve divers in the competition, his final dive was only the ninth best of that round. The door was wide open for me to take advantage. I stepped onto the edge of the diving platform, keeping my cues in mind. I don’t remember taking off. I don’t remember doing two and a half somersaults and two and a half twists. I only remember coming up out of the water and not caring where I finished. I had done the best six dives in a competition that I’d ever done. I honestly did not care about the outcome, because I knew, without a doubt, that I had done my absolute best.
I went straight to Adam and looked at the scoreboard, but it was all a blur. I couldn’t process what was happening in that moment. A score of 102.6 on my last dive had moved me into first place, with only Qiu Bo left to go. My teammates were screaming for me. The Canadian and Russian divers (the entire diving world, for that matter) were screaming for me.
“What place am I in?” I asked Adam.
“First,” he said. “It’s going to be close.”
I watched Qiu Bo’s dive, and it seemed that he went in the water slightly over (not completely vertical). But I had to wait for the scores to confirm that. When they came in, I looked at the scoreboard, and my name didn’t switch. It was still at the top. I couldn’t comprehend it, but I had won the gold medal. My lifelong dream had come true. I was an Olympic champion.
Adam came over, hugged me tightly, and prayed. He didn’t pray because he was excited. He prayed for my safety because he knew what was going to come next. Rock-star status is thrust upon Olympic gold medalists immediately, and Adam knew that though I had just won an important battle by capturing the gold, another battle was looming on the horizon.
It took a while for the reality to hit me that I had won the gold. My teammates, many of them bawling, swarmed me on the pool deck. I went through the mixed zone with the media and was still dumbfounded by what had happened. I was straight-faced and shocked. A couple of Canadian divers who were friends came up to me and said, “David, you just won the Olympic Games. You’re allowed to smile.” That friendly chastisement snapped me back to reality.
I smiled. I had won a gold medal.
The medal ceremony followed. That was one of the most memorable experiences of my time at the Olympics. As I stood there, watching the American flag rising up and hearing the national anthem, I thought of how I had pictured this moment in my mind ever since I was a little boy. So many times, over and over again, I had envisioned what this exact moment would be like. And here it was actually happening. Nearby were the people I treasured most who had been supporting me my entire life. My parents. My sisters. And then the new relationships, the people who had played such a pivotal role during the last four years. Adam and Kimiko. Sonnie. My teammates and friends.
A sense of immense gratitude overwhelmed me, and the emotion of the moment overpowered me. I never wanted to be the guy who cried at the Olympics, but I had to fight back the tears. My heart was full. Not because I had won a gold medal. Yes, that was thrilling and the culmination of all I had worked and sacrificed for. But more than that, my heart was full because I realized how different my heart was. I had given up my laser focus on winning a gold medal in exchange for a more fulfilling and lasting focus on God, his Word, and his people. I came to the London Olympics with a goal of honoring God in my pursuit of the gold, more than just the pursuit of a medal itself.
And yet, God saw fit to give me the one thing that I had sought for so long. In his sovereignty, he had determined that the gold medal was what would make me more like Jesus. That’s not to say that God will always give us what we want if we make him the priority in our lives. He’s not a genie who’s there to do our bidding if we simply say or do the right things. He may or he may not. He is God, and he is not obligated to do what we think he should.
For some, coming to Christ might result in losing a job or important relationships. It might mean any number of difficulties or hardships. The Bible tells us that Christians will suffer for the sake of Christ, so don’t expect life always to be easy if you’re faithful in following the Lord. Yet he’s faithful to us through our struggles, even if they never go away. For me, God gave me what I wanted to show me what I needed. What I needed, more than anything else, was him. And the gold medal would clearly reveal that to me in the days ahead. It was both a blessing and a trial.
No matter what happens, God is a gracious, loving father who delights in doing good things for his people. We sometimes have this faulty notion that God is really out to get us or enjoys putting us through fiery trials. We imagine him sitting there, waiting for us to mess up so he can zap us and bring us back in line. We’re tempted to think that we can earn God’s favor if we just read our Bibles enough, pray enough, or live in a way that is holy or good enough. That’s a faulty view of who God is. In reality, the Lord is kind and is quick to pour out blessings on those who love him, even if they come in ways we do not expect. God did not owe me a gold medal. Yet it delighted him to give it to me anyway. What an amazing God, who deserves our praise and our devotion. It’s easy to say that when things go your way, but it’s no less true when they don’t. Even a defeat is an opportunity for me to say how good God is. This time, however, I got to praise him in victory.
The first few hours after the competition were a media whirlwind. I talked about what had just happened a thousand times, it seemed. After the medal ceremony I went through another mixed zone with TV stations. A press conference followed that. For the next couple of hours, the interviews came one right after another. I answered questions about what changed from the prelims to the finals. I answered questions about what it felt like to win a gold medal.
I finally got back to the village late that night and started packing. The closing ceremony was the next night, and my room looked like clothes had been vomited all over it. After such a long stay in London, packing was no fifteen-minute task. We had a team brunch the next morning with a little ring ceremony where USA Diving handed out Olympic rings. In the middle of it, the media relations representative came up and told me I needed to head home immediately, not waiting around until the next day, because the Today Show wanted to have me on. That’s when it hit me how big a deal this was. Any plans I might have had for the next few days had just been changed, and it meant missing the closing ceremony.
After the brunch, Adam and I went outside and talked seriously for the first time since the night before. This was when it was going to get hard, he told me. I had done the training and knew how to battle spiritually during the competition, but I didn’t know how to battle the onslaught of praise and accolades that was heading my way. I could tell Adam was legitimately fearful for my well-being in this. I knew it was a big deal because of how serious he was. The media would be repeatedly telling my story and presenting me as a hero. Fans would know who I was and want pictures and autographs. If you’re not careful, you can start to believe your own press. That was a potential pitfall that could cause serious destruction to my life and my soul if I didn’t guard against it.
To help, Adam asked Brent Aucoin from Faith Church in Lafayette if he could meet me in New York to provide spiritual support and counsel during my media tour. Brent dropped everything and came. What a huge blessing that was. For so long, my life had been a struggle to gain the praise of man. In an environment where everyone was giving me exactly that, Brent wanted to be there to help me fulfill what God was calling me to do.
I arrived in New York late at night and woke up about four o’clock the next morning to begin the media tour. I appeared on almost every morning talk show. I did satellite radio interviews. I did cable interviews. You name it, I probably did it. It went nonstop all day long. Get in the car, go to an interview, get back in the car, go to another interview. Over and over. I don’t think I got back to my hotel room until about nine that night.
The biggest trap for me was believing the lie that I had accomplished all this myself—that I was the king of this triumph. That’s a major danger for anyone who wins. It’s easy to assume that it’s all about you and you accomplish it on your own merits. So before every interview, Brent helped me get my mind right by coaching me spiritually. He wanted me to look every interviewer in the face, ask his or her name, and be intentional with my interactions. Treat them like human beings. It’s easy to get into a routine where you do an interview and answer the questions, but don’t take the time to truly see the person asking you the questions. He reminded me to be a visible representation of God by looking for ways that I could serve people at the media outlets I visited rather than just being served by them. I even got in the habit of giving people I encountered my gold medal and letting them put it around their necks. Doing that was a thrill to many, and I’m glad I could bless them in that way.
Once the media blitz ended, I returned home to West Lafayette. In some ways, I came home as the same David Boudia who had left a few weeks previously. I had a gold medal to my credit, which would prove to be another trial in the days ahead. In other ways, however, my life would never be the same again.