Donna Spencer

ATHENS (CP) - Divers Emilie Heymans and Blythe Hartley made their friendship work for them in winning Canada's first medal -a bronze -at the 2004 Olympic Games on Monday.

The pair joked and giggled together nervously between dives on the 10-metre tower. It was a stark contrast to the synchronized springboard event two nights earlier when the pair were stonefaced, didn't talk much and underperformed, resulting in a seventh-place finish.

"We looked back on Saturday and we realized that we didn't dive well and we had no fun," Hartley said. "What was the point of that?"

The 22-year-olds went into Monday's event with a lighter attitude. Hartley, a springboard specialist, is a chatterbox on the tower because she gets so nervous on it and Heymans gets a kick out of her partner's babble.

"We were sometimes laughing during the event and I guess it works better for us like that," Heymans said.

Heymans of St-Lambert, Que., collected her second Olympic medal in the synchro tower after winning a silver with Anne Montminy four years ago in Sydney, where synchro diving made its Olympic debut.

It was the first Olympic medal for Hartley, and the native of North Vancouver, B.C., hoped it would kickstart the Canadian Olympic team.

"I hope it's inspiring," she said. "I know all the athletes feel a lot of pressure and they want to perform to the best of their abilities.

"The key is just to kind of just relax and believe in yourself. I hope this motivates people and inspires them and if I did anything to help them at all, I'll be thrilled."

For the Canadian diving team, the synchro bronze was gravy, which speaks to the team's depth here.

Heymans is the world champion on women's tower and opens that event Friday with the preliminaries. Alexandre Despatie of Laval, Que., is a medal contender in both men's tower and springboard and Hartley has a good shot at the podium in springboard next week.

"I certainly didn't count on a synchro medal," Canadian team coach Mitch Geller said. "I knew we had the capability for sure, but we considered any type of hardware that came in for synchro would be a bonus.

"We would have preferred the silver, but geez, fourth would have really sucked."

Heymans and Hartley were second to eventual gold medallists Lao Lishi and Li Ting of China for the first three rounds of the five-dive final. The Canadians were overtaken by Russians Natalia Goncharova and Yulia Koltunova for silver on the fourth dive.

Mexican divers Paola Espinosa and Jashia Luna trailed the Canadians in fourth place heading into the final round and were the last divers to perform.

After they'd completed their dive, the judges had problems electronically entering their scores. After a few minutes of trying, they resorted to their hand-held flash cards, so the tension built before the Canadians' medal was confirmed.

Hartley hadn't felt the Mexicans were strong enough on their last dive to overtake them, but Geller said he felt stressed while the scores were being tallied.

"I was getting quite agitated and hoping that somebody would get the defibrillators out for me because I was about to have a heart attack," he said.

The 5,757-seat Olympic Aquatic Centre, which houses the diving tank and the water polo pool, was about two-thirds full and there were fewer spectators Monday than for the men's synchro tower and women's springboard Saturday.

Hartley moved to Montreal last September to train at Heyman's CAMO club. The two were friends before her relocation because of the small Canadian diving community, but have become closer since they began training together.

"It's better when you're really good friends with somebody because I guess sometimes, you can tell them more the truth, because you know them better and how they're going to react," Heymans said.

When they are on the tower, Heymans has to be the one to count out loud to start their dive. She's had only 25 per cent hearing in her right ear since she was an infant and that ear is the one that's closest to Hartley on the boards.

Heymans had said she felt like "a zombie" in Saturday's springboard event, but was able Monday to find "positive stress that gives you the extra energy to really be able to finish your dive," she said.

The Canadian team makes the sychro diving secondary to the individual events, but Heymans has come to embrace synchro . "I don't think I really liked it on Saturday, but I really liked it today," she said.

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