University of Houston Athletics
Pakhalina Ready to Defend Diving National Titles
3/20/2002 12:00:00 AM | Swimming & Diving
March 20, 2002
AUSTIN, Texas - After another record-setting season, junior diver Yulia Pakhalina is ready to defend her NCAA national championships this weekend in Austin, Texas.
Pakhalina, who captured the 2001 NCAA crowns in the one-meter and three-meter springboard events, begins the task of defending those titles when she competes during the NCAA Championships at the Jamail Texas Swimming Center. The competition starts with one-meter diving finals around 7 p.m. Thursday and continues with the three-meter event around 7 p.m. Saturday.
This season, Pakhalina has continued her dominance as the nation's premier collegiate diver. She reeled off 26 consecutive diving event victories this season to run her collegiate winning streak to 36 straight events and has never lost a collegiate diving competition.
During her career, she has dominated her opponents, winning by an average of more than 75.0 points on the one-meter board and more than 118.0 points on the three-meter board.
A week ago, she participated at the NCAA Zone D Diving Qualifier and crushed her competitors with scores of 336.00 points on the one-meter springboard and 655.75 points in the three-meter event. She was the only diver to tally more than 300 points in the one-meter event and was the only competitor to accumulate more than 600 points on the three-meter board.
If she does successfully defend her national titles, they will only add to an already impressive trophy case this season. Pakhalina captured the first-ever Conference USA championships on the one-meter and three-meter boards and claimed top honors in platform diving despite having never competed in that event during the regular season.
For those impressive performances, she was honored as the C-USA Diver of the Year and Diver of the Meet. Those awards were in addition to her five C-USA Diver of the Week awards.
