Nikos Siranidis
Gold medal, August 16, 2004, Thomas Bimis – Nikos Siranidis, synchronized diving 3m. Athens 2004
Our first medal at the Olympic Games in Athens was both unexpected and gold. It came from diving, in the discipline of synchronized diving, with the protagonists Thomas Bimi and Nikos Siranidis, who surprised both the Greek and foreign public with their performance. The awards and placements in the last competitions had given the two Greeks the certainty of the medal. Their fourth out of five attempts was the best and secured them a place on the podium. However, the mistakes of the Chinese and Russians in the final put them in the lead and the gold medal. This left the two favorites, China and Russia, in 8th and 7th place. The exact scores of the two Greeks in the dives were: 1st: 54.60, 2nd: 52.80, 3rd: 78.30, 4th: 84.00, 5th: 83.64 = 353.34
It is the first medal in diving in the history of the Olympic Games and the first since 1896 in aquatic sports.
The final Bimis – Siranidis (Greece) 353.34 points Wels – Schellenberg (Germany) 350.01 Newberry – Barnett (Australia) 349.59 Betancourt – Fornaris (Cuba) 338.46 Ally – Shipman (M. Great Britain) 334.98 Dumais – T. Dumais (USA) 327.06 Sautin – Dobroskok (Russia) 312.24 Peng – Wang (China) 283.89.
They said..
“Our success will help our sport spread more among children. Finally, some people will stop thinking that we compete with oxygen tanks. In our minds there was the will to win the medal, we believed that we could achieve one of the podium places, and that’s how the gold medal came about. It’s about absolute luck. What we experienced cannot be put into words. We did not sleep all night, we laughed, we cried… The audience was fantastic, we soaked up all their energy, and we got gold”.
August 16 2004
