A Decorated Russian Diver Scores A 0.00 After A Heartwrenching Back Flop

It must be near impossible to comprehend total failure when you’re an elite athlete. Especially when you’re one that has won multiple European championships and was a solid dive away from moving onto the Olympic 3m diving semifinals. All Nadezhda Bazhina had to do was not score a 0.00 on this dive after scoring well previously. It’s almost as if scoring a 0.00 is harder than this looks. Imagine how many times she’s come off the board perfectly, only to have everything go haywire under the bright, Rio lights.

She was supposed to hit three and a half somersaults, but instead she seemed to have slipped, which pushed her off to the side and forced her to come off the board awkwardly, and completely flub her dive.

The clip took off on the BBC’s sports page, where a commenter described the fail (H/T BroBible):

‘So what happened is Bazhina’s landed with basically one foot on the board, the other one has slipped right off the side, and that’s killed her take-off. No height.’

‘Wow. That is calamitous.’

The world’s hearts went out to her and felt the 0.00 might’ve been a little too harsh.

https://twitter.com/motasports/status/764192801516957696

For the 28-year-old, this could signal the worst possible end of a career.

(Via BroBible)