Kimiko Soldati: Perseverance on the Platform
I’ve always been a bundle of energy. My parents threw me into gymnastics when I was little to burn off some of that energy–I guess I was driving them totally crazy at home. I loved gymnastics; I absolutely loved it, and I got very serious about it. My parents drove me to train every single day all the way up into high school.
Little girls in gymnastics always dream of going to the Olympics. I remember watching Mary Lou Retton win the gold medal, and I wanted to be just like her. Then when I was 14, I blew out my knee while dismounting off the balance beam, putting a stop to my gymnastics career. After I underwent about a year of rehabilitation, my dad suggested I try diving. As a physical therapist, he looked for a sport that would be gentle on my knees and suit my body type. I went out for the diving team at my high school in Longmont, Colorado, and made it. It was fun, but I didn’t love it the way I loved gymnastics.
The summer before my senior year in high school I lost my mother after a brave eight-year battle with breast cancer. She had always been my biggest source of inspiration, so her death was a huge blow. But her inspiration continued long after her death. During the last few months of her life, Mom wrapped gifts and wrote notes for my dad to give to me at specific times in the future. So even though she couldn’t be there physically, she wanted me to know she would always be with me in spirit.
 One of the things that kept me going after my mother’s death was diving. Eventually I caught the attention of a coach from Colorado State University and was offered a scholarship. I was shocked—I didn’t even know there was diving in college! I was on the team at CSU for a couple of years and then transferred to Indiana University, a school famous for its excellent diving program. At Indiana my diving career really took off. I also met and married the love of my life there.
After I graduated, I wanted to take that next step in my sport, so my husband I moved to The Woodlands in Texas so that I could train with Kenny Armstrong, 2000 Olympic gold medalist Laura Wilkinson’s coach. With his help, I developed into an Olympic-caliber athlete myself.
Unfortunately, I’ve faced more than my share of injuries. In 1996, I tore my bicep away from the bone. I had surgery to reattach it and have had problems with my shoulder ever since. I had another surgery in 1997 and had to take 1998 and 1999 off. I was finally back in the water in 2000, but I’d lost nearly three years of training—three years of total frustration. In 2002 I had another surgery, this time to reattach that stubborn bicep and repair my rotator cuff. I tried to go back to diving, but I had a lot of pain.
Then in September 2003, less than nine months before the Olympic trials were to be held, I went under the knife again to remove the scar tissue that had been created by all my other operations. I started diving again in December of 2003; I had only a few months to get in top form to earn one of the two coveted spots in each event. But with hard work, and a whole lot of faith, I beat the odds and found a place on the 2004 U.S. Olympic diving team. At 30 years old, I was the oldest diver to represent the United States.
Not only was I on the team, but I was given the tremendous honor of being chosen the captain of the U.S. Olympic diving team. I competed in the three-meter springboard event in Athens, but my injured shoulder flared up and my performance was disappointing. Even though it was hard, I did my best to encourage my teammates despite my own misfortune.
To me, that’s what life is all about: picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and doing your best with the gifts you’ve been given.
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