Houston's Pakhalina Regains National Title on One-Meter Board

Yulia Pakhalina

In her final meet on the 1-meter springboard, University of Houston senior Yulia Pakhalina regained her place as the nation’s premier collegiate diver Thursday evening.

AUBURN, Ala. – In her final meet on the 1-meter springboard, University of Houston senior Yulia Pakhalina regained her place as the nation’s premier collegiate diver Thursday evening.

For the fourth time in her collegiate career. Pakhalina captured an NCAA individual national championship. The Penza, Russia, native earned 339.70 points in the finals of the 1-meter competition at the James E. Martin Aquatic Center during the 2003 NCAA Championships, hosted by Auburn.

Tennessee’s Jamie Sanger finished second with 329.90 points in the finals, while USC’s Blythe Hartley was a close third with 329.70 points

With the win, Pakhalina tied Diane Johannigman for the most individual national championships in program history and needs only to win her third consecutive title on the 3-meter board Friday to set a new school record.

In her first year at UH in 2001, Pakhalina captured the national crown on the 1-meter board. A year later, she earned a national runner-up spot in the event at the 2002 NCAA Championships, one of only two defeats she has endured during her outstanding collegiate career.

Thursday’s win was the 63rd in 65 all-time outings during her collegiate career.

Pakhalina qualified for the finals with a solid performance in the preliminaries earlier in the day. With 331.40 points, she finished ahead of Hartley by nearly 10 points entering the evening competition.

Pakhalina continues her stay at the meet Friday when she competes on the 3-meter springboard. She is the two-time defending NCAA national champion in that event and has never lost in that event, winning 31 consecutive events as a collegiate diver.

She joins teammate Azul Almazan in that event, who also qualified with a second-place finish at the NCAA Zone D Diving Meet last weekend.

Preliminaries are slated to begin at 1 p.m. Friday with the finals expected to start around 7 p.m.