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The third observance of the partners' Olympic-watching parties looked like it would be the last. The closing ceremony wasn't for another three or four days, but the two events they most wanted to see were being broadcast live, today: the finals of the women's 10-meter platform event, followed by the women's marathon.
The former was scheduled to be broadcast in the afternoon, Alpine time. The marathon was later in the evening.
They assembled in the meeting room well ahead of time, feeling not the least bit guilty about pooling all the firm's otherwise lucrative billable hours in watching television. Sports was their business too. At the moment it was big business.
Mrs. Anderson had arranged for a sort of carryout buffet, and Benning surprised everyone with several bottles of champagne in an iced bucket. Only Bynum joined him. Braithwaite and Caxton said they'd wait.
It promised to be a long affair. Everyone was a little on edge. There was a lot of checking of watches.
The coverage began with several segments devoted to Darcy. The network's prime-time sports anchor man, Eric Bradley, opened the broadcast.
"The Barbadian athlete Ana Darcy has set the athletic world on its ear over the course of the games in Dublin, with record-shattering performances in cycling and track and field. Now, we are going to take a look at Ana Darcy from several perspectives. Her personal life and history remain almost entirely a mystery, but our staff has been doing some digging and we have put together several special reports for you tonight. First, Peter Briscoe, in New York, has been looking into Ana Darcy's achievements and comparing them to those of the great athletes of yore. Peter?"
Briscoe's report was built around an interview with a prominent sports physiologist. He averred that performances like Darcy's were practically inconceivable. In view of the demonstrable fact that the world had seen them happen, then she must have been drawing on finite reserves of strength that could not possibly continue.
He claimed to have observed signs of stress in her. She would, he thought, very likely experience a total collapse early in the marathon, the most grueling of Olympic events.
After a long commercial break, Bradley conducted the second segment himself, interviewing the sports doctor the network called on regularly for the Tour de France and other major events. Dr. Fergus was a middle-aged, bearded gent in a white lab coat. He pointed out that the drug testing in this particular Olympics had been especially rigorous, and that Darcy had tested drug-free from the beginning. He could not rule out, however, some heretofore unknown regimen or agent.
He closed by noting the lack of athletic precedents.
"It's obvious, Eric, after a little reflection, that even athletes in the past who were known to have been using performance-enhancing drugs have not been able to achieve even one of the records that Ms. Darcy has in this Olympics. The fact that she has done so not once but four times so far is simply unexplainable. Hers is a totally extraordinary accomplishment."
The third segment was narrated by one of the network's long-time reporters, a genial elderly fellow known for his puff pieces about odd or engaging characters. His theme seemed to be "Darcy mania," a phenomenon he illustrated with many video clips. There were crowds of excited girls carrying signs in New Delhi. Irish women lighting candles in churches. French school children in an auditorium gathered before a large television on a stage, man and woman on the street encounters in Melbourne. Even Rastafarians were singing her praises worshipfully through clouds of smoke.
There followed yet another commercial break, interrupted in the middle by a teaser showing the diving platform looming over the glass-like, blue water of the pool, the stands packed with spectators.
A voice said, "When we come back, the gold medal round of the women's 10-meter platform diving."
"Did I tell you that we've been contacted by nineteen different parties interested in exploring representation?" said Benning.
"That Lollar. What a guy," said Bynum.
Caxton snorted. "Just to let you know, in case others contact any of you. We're starting a list. We still don't know what Ms. Darcy's intentions are, beyond her present contracts with us. We'll have to talk to her after this is over. Hartley, that's probably your sad duty."
"That's right," Braithwaite rumbled. "Stick the black man with the hard part."
Caxton spit scotch onto the carpet and coughed, holding his hand to his nose.
Onscreen, the diving began. Darcy had built up what seemed an insurmountable lead in the semifinals the day before. In this final round, despite good dives from most of the rest of the women the conclusion seemed inevitable.
The crowd, while not unappreciative of her closest competitors, went crazy whenever she slipped out of the pool after a dive and smiled hesitantly at them. She waved shyly once, and a rhythmic thumping and clapping thundered throughout the building.
The same pair of announcers from the previous two days went into paroxysms of analysis during the slow-motion replays of each of Darcy's dives. It did seem amazing to the watching lawyers how all the divers approached perfection but failed in tiny ways.
Darcy seemed to hit every dive with hardly a ripple.
The expert commentator, a young former diver named Naia Donough, was particularly fixated on Darcy's entry into the water, showing slow motion video frame by frame from cameras both above and below the water.
"She's doing something with her hands," Donough said. "She's shaping them somehow at the instant they hit the water, but she's doing it too fast and there are too many bubbles around her hands to be able to tell exactly what.
“Of course, she’s small, and wouldn’t make a huge splash anyway. But she's amazingly precise in controlling and orienting her body at the exact moment of entry. That's hard to do when you're falling while spinning at forty miles an hour. I've never seen any diver as consistently able to control her body as she is. I'll tell you one thing, Hal. The videos of these dives are going to become training aids the world over."
The partners had seen enough diving over the past three days to know that the women saved their most difficult dives of the day for last. The more difficult a particular dive was, the larger the "difficulty factor" multiplied into the scoring.
None of them understood it completely, but they had learned that dives were various combinations of spins and twists, and that the spins and twists never exceeded three or three and a half.
When Donough said that Darcy's last dive would have four and a half spins and two and a half twists, and that she, Naia Donough, wasn't sure it was possible, they could only stare at the screen in silence.
They were as breathless as the spectators in the natatorium.
Darcy nailed that one too, her body spinning and twisting so rapidly that it was a blur on the television screen. There was no splash and barely a sound—just bubbles floating to the surface, as if she had sucked the water down behind her.
It was so quiet when she slipped out of the pool that the camera picked up her coach's "Yeah!" as he handed her a towel and hugged her.
Then it began, a steady, pulsing roar that shook the building for a good five minutes. The unfortunate next diver had to stand on the high platform until the crowd quieted. Then, perhaps shaken by it all, badly missed her dive.
As soon as the final four divers had taken their turns, the medal ceremony was held at the end of the pool opposite the platform.
When Darcy stepped on the top riser, the crowd applauded anew. The medals were awarded, the anthem was played. When she ventured a hesitant wave, it prompted a renewed ruckus.
Stunned by the crowd’s reaction, Darcy clearly looked dismayed. Officials hustled her out to a waiting bus to take her to the starting line of the marathon. The screen cut to commercials.
Bynum, a respectable college athlete in his day, glanced at Braithwaite. "Hartley, what is this? What the hell is this?"
Braithwaite's mouth twitched. "Don’t ask me. I just work here."
Benning shook his head. "This is unreal. This is huge. Does anyone know what the hell is happening?"
"That's five," said Braxton. “Five golds.”
The screen was showing a van with the Olympic symbol on the side passing through a neighborhood of row houses and little shops. The camera zoomed in on two heads silhouetted behind the driver.
The shorter of the two appeared to be eating something.
