by Craig Morgan, TheSunDevils.com writer
TEMPE, Ariz. -- Mara Aiacoboae admits she wasn't in the best physical or mental state when she arrived at the Pac-12 diving championships last February. As Aiacoboae left the 2016 FINA Diving World Cup in Rio de Janeiro, her dream of qualifying for the Romanian Olympic team was dead, missed by a single team slot.
She boarded a flight in Rio, flew back across five time zones and more than 6,800 miles, landed in Seattle and had to compete the next day.
"I was very upset with my result and I guess I didn't care that much about what was going to happen after that, but I only have four years of college and I felt like the Pac-12 was a really big meet, very important, so I didn't want to miss it," Aiacoboae said. "I was very tired when I arrived."
Coach Mark Bradshaw even gave Aiacoboae a hall pass if she wanted to skip the meet, based on the extraordinary circumstances, but Aiacoboae competed nonetheless. Somehow, she still earned third place in the platform event and a spot on the medal stand.
"That's a hard pill to swallow when you've been pointing towards such a big goal and then just miss it," Bradshaw said. "To get right back on her feet and keep her spirits up, it says a lot about who she is. She's tough. She's a tiger. She sucked it up. She'll never show that anything bothers her."
It's that toughness that helped Aiacoboae climb to the top of the medal stand at this year's Pac-12 diving championships. Aiacoboae became the first ASU women's diver since Elina Eggers in 2010 to win the platform event at the conference meet, and just the fifth Sun Devil ever to win a Pac-12/10 championship in the event.
"I really wanted to win Pac-12 because the past two years I was close and I thought I had a valid chance," said Aiacoboae, who finished fourth her freshman season. "I think a big key for me, especially for the Pac-12, is to be mentally strong. During the meet and before every dive I motivate myself and try to calm myself down so I can follow through.
"There is mental work before every dive and a lot of divers have mental blockages because of that, so succeeding and winning a meet makes you feel more in control. It's not about pushing boundaries and physical limits. It's all psychological."
With the Pac-12 feather in her cap, Aiacoboae will begin preparing for the NCAA Zone E Diving Championships from Monday to Wednesday in in Flagstaff. The women's NCAA Championships take place in Indianapolis from March 15-18. Aiacoboae finished fourth on the platform at the NCAA meet in 2015.
Because so many college divers redshirted last season for the Olympic year, both Bradshaw and Aiacoboae expect the competition to be much stiffer at NCAAs this year, assuming she makes it.
"She's been to the World championships and the European championships so she knows what to expect from big meets," Bradshaw said. "The great thing about Mara, too, is I don't have to manage her or tell her what to do. Of course I tell her what to do for practice and training-wise, but she's very easy to coach. She does all the little prep work on her own."
Aiacoboae clearly doesn't shy away from challenges. She came halfway around the world to compete at ASU with only a couple Romanian swimmers and one assistant coach -- all of whom have since left the program -- to provide a level of comfort with a culture and school she knew nothing about three months before she arrived.
With the next Olympics more than three years away, however, Aiacoboae, a psychology major, is focused more on her final year and a half at ASU, and then on landing a job in the fields of sports psychology, coaching or massage therapy.
"Being an international, you need to get a job to stay here," she said. "If I can do that and focus on my sport at the same time, I will do it, but at the same time it will complicated."
TEMPE, Ariz. -- Mara Aiacoboae admits she wasn't in the best physical or mental state when she arrived at the Pac-12 diving championships last February. As Aiacoboae left the 2016 FINA Diving World Cup in Rio de Janeiro, her dream of qualifying for the Romanian Olympic team was dead, missed by a single team slot.
She boarded a flight in Rio, flew back across five time zones and more than 6,800 miles, landed in Seattle and had to compete the next day.
"I was very upset with my result and I guess I didn't care that much about what was going to happen after that, but I only have four years of college and I felt like the Pac-12 was a really big meet, very important, so I didn't want to miss it," Aiacoboae said. "I was very tired when I arrived."
Coach Mark Bradshaw even gave Aiacoboae a hall pass if she wanted to skip the meet, based on the extraordinary circumstances, but Aiacoboae competed nonetheless. Somehow, she still earned third place in the platform event and a spot on the medal stand.
"That's a hard pill to swallow when you've been pointing towards such a big goal and then just miss it," Bradshaw said. "To get right back on her feet and keep her spirits up, it says a lot about who she is. She's tough. She's a tiger. She sucked it up. She'll never show that anything bothers her."
It's that toughness that helped Aiacoboae climb to the top of the medal stand at this year's Pac-12 diving championships. Aiacoboae became the first ASU women's diver since Elina Eggers in 2010 to win the platform event at the conference meet, and just the fifth Sun Devil ever to win a Pac-12/10 championship in the event.
"I really wanted to win Pac-12 because the past two years I was close and I thought I had a valid chance," said Aiacoboae, who finished fourth her freshman season. "I think a big key for me, especially for the Pac-12, is to be mentally strong. During the meet and before every dive I motivate myself and try to calm myself down so I can follow through.
"There is mental work before every dive and a lot of divers have mental blockages because of that, so succeeding and winning a meet makes you feel more in control. It's not about pushing boundaries and physical limits. It's all psychological."
With the Pac-12 feather in her cap, Aiacoboae will begin preparing for the NCAA Zone E Diving Championships from Monday to Wednesday in in Flagstaff. The women's NCAA Championships take place in Indianapolis from March 15-18. Aiacoboae finished fourth on the platform at the NCAA meet in 2015.
Because so many college divers redshirted last season for the Olympic year, both Bradshaw and Aiacoboae expect the competition to be much stiffer at NCAAs this year, assuming she makes it.
"She's been to the World championships and the European championships so she knows what to expect from big meets," Bradshaw said. "The great thing about Mara, too, is I don't have to manage her or tell her what to do. Of course I tell her what to do for practice and training-wise, but she's very easy to coach. She does all the little prep work on her own."
Aiacoboae clearly doesn't shy away from challenges. She came halfway around the world to compete at ASU with only a couple Romanian swimmers and one assistant coach -- all of whom have since left the program -- to provide a level of comfort with a culture and school she knew nothing about three months before she arrived.
With the next Olympics more than three years away, however, Aiacoboae, a psychology major, is focused more on her final year and a half at ASU, and then on landing a job in the fields of sports psychology, coaching or massage therapy.
"Being an international, you need to get a job to stay here," she said. "If I can do that and focus on my sport at the same time, I will do it, but at the same time it will complicated."