Laura Ann Wilkinson isn’t exactly a household name but her unexpected victory at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia left a lasting impression on me. More specifically, her eagerness to give God all the glory for that victory has stayed with me all these years.
Laura was born in Houston, Texas in 1977 to Ed and Linda Wilkinson. Her first sport was gymnastics but a growth spurt during puberty forced her to give it up. She was simply too tall. So, she redirected her skills as a gymnast to a new sport; diving. One teacher told her she was too old to start a new sport at the ripe old age of 15. Laura was undaunted, even when she was kicked off the high school dive team for being “a waste of space.”
She was attending the University of Texas on scholarship when she decided to take a break and pursue her dream of being an Olympian. She began training at The Woodlands, Texas.
Laura was anything but a “waste of space” in the world of platform diving. She went on to be a three-time Olympic champion and become the only woman in history to win the Olympics, the World Cup and the World Championship.
What made her win in the 2000 Olympics truly amazing was that she had broken her foot in training just a few months before. Other women were favored to win the competition. The world stood on edge when Laura nailed her dives with amazing precision. But what happened next was even more astounding. With the world watching, she credited her win to her Savior, Jesus Christ.
Oh, she owed the victory to hard work and dedication, as well. But with her injuries, the victory was nothing short of a miracle.
Laura’s faith was not always unwavering. Although she never rejected God, she did drift away from him for a while in her teen years. The Christian faith she embraced as a child grew difficult when two people near and dear to her passed away unexpectedly. She attended church less and talked with God less frequently.
In a 2008 interview on Christopher Closeup, Laure explained,
“I was lost after losing them. I withdrew from a lot of people. I [felt like] diving was all I had left. I thought it was the only thing I had control of so I wrapped my life in it. Then I started getting disoriented in the air while diving…The one thing that I thought made my life stable was totally slipping away. That’s when I realized what I was missing. I didn’t know what God wanted to do with my life, but I knew I needed Him to fix it and to be the center of it and to put my pieces back together. I actually rededicated my life to Him in the middle of a diving meet. The way it’s intertwined has really made me love the sport because God used it to bring me to my knees and bring me back to Him.”
Through the struggles, Laura learned she could have joy even in difficult circumstances, even in the losses — and that puts an almost perpetual smile on her face. She is truly grateful for both the big and the little things in her life.
After taking a nine year hiatus, Laura competed and placed second at the US National Championship In 2017. While training for the 2020 Olympic Games, doctors discovered she needed to undergo neck surgery. That, and the Covid-19 shutdowns, stopped her from returning to the realm of competition.
That, however, has not stopped her from remaining involved in the word of athletics. While she was recovering from surgery, she developed Confident Competitor, an online course for competitive athletes to help them overcome performance anxiety.
Laura also hosts Pursuit of God, a podcast geared toward helping athletes reach their full potential through conversations that explore physical, emotional, mental and spiritual tools.
“I choose to be a champion both in character and in integrity.” – Laura Wilkinson
