A pool prodigy at age 5, Alexandre Despatie was only 13 when he took the diving world by storm

Rosie DiManno

ATHENS�Alexandre Despatie has no memory of a time before diving, or circa BD.

Maybe w-a-a-a-y back when, in the prenatal stage of existence, although even then he was probably somersaulting in amniotic fluid � in the tuck position.

"I really don't remember what happened before," the Montreal native said yesterday after reeling off six tremendous plongeons from the springboard � that would be his weaker event � qualifying first overall for this afternoon's semi, to be followed in barely-catch-your-breath haste by finals in the evening.

"It's been part of my life forever."

At age 5, Despatie was a drop-out-of-the-sky (or drop-from-the-platform) prodigy, from nearly the moment he stepped into the Claude Robillard Centre, causing the mouths of coaches and diving diviners to salivate.

Eight years later, just a pre-pubescent boy, Despatie became the youngest-ever Commonwealth Games gold medallist, uncorking an extraordinary array of tricks from the tower.

The Australian divers salaamed him in we're-not-worthy fashion. Colossus-sized Briton Tony Ally hoisted the youngster on his shoulder, parading him around the apron of the pool.

"In 1998, it was the first I ever saw (Ally) and he was huge to me then," Despatie recalls of that memorable day in Kuala Lumpur. "After the event, everybody was kind of standing around me. Then he comes over and he just grabs me, says, `Let's show you to the crowd.' I'm like, okay. So he put me on his shoulder and I'm waving to everybody."

For those who witnessed that scene, it was one of those freeze-frame moments in sports, the mental snapshots that never fade from memory: The triumphant little boy, less than 5 feet tall and weighing under a hundred pounds, smacking down a field of grown-up men, and far too young to fully comprehend what he'd accomplished.

Despatie isn't a boy any more, nor so innocent. He's a young man and diving veteran, his enthusiasm for the sport undiminished but competitively ripe now, even at just 19, and mentally attuned to the nuances of gob-smacking spectacles such as the Olympics. Poised, media friendly, seemingly unnerved by the pressure of the Games. Just antsy, waiting for the real diving competition � as opposed to last week's synchro version � to begin.

The Canadian diving squad left Athens, retreated to their suburban training centre, following the synchronized events. "It was a good thing to get away," he says.

"We came back three days ago and after our first practice, I was ready to compete. If I had stayed here for that whole time, I would have been dying by now, going crazy."

Despatie entered these Games as the platform world champion, the event that will be contested later in the week. But yesterday he catapulted himself into gold threat territory on the springboard as well.

Not that he was the least bit impressed with his afternoon's work, despite achieving top marks in four of six dives � gaudy numbers that no doubt injected a frisson of panic into the gold-medal favourite Chinese and the world champion Russian and the defending Olympic silver medallist Mexican.

Despatie shrugs off the results as essentially meaningless because rankings from yesterday's outcome determine only the order of competition for the four-round semifinal today. The scores will be tossed out.

"Somebody can have very good prelims and a bad final, or the other way around. What was good about this morning is that I was able to deal with any situation that there was to deal with � the nervousness of starting the actual Olympics, just being able to stay calm and have a good technique on the board.

"The point was to make it through, be in a comfortable position to get into the final."

Then, with a smile that crinkled his cocoa-bean eyes, he added: "I'm first, so I guess that's pretty comfortable."

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