By Rubin E. Grant
Jennifer Chandler gets transported back in time and her heart rate increases whenever the Summer Olympics approach.
She always returns to the same year and same place: 1976 in Montreal, Canada.
With the 2024 Summer Olympics set to begin July 26 in Paris, Chandler is time traveling again.
“Every time the Olympics roll around and they start playing that music from the Montreal Games, my heart races because I know the up-and-coming athletes are going to be putting their lives on the line,” Chandler said.
Chandler put her life on the line in 1976 and emerged with a gold medal in 3-meter springboard diving in the Montreal Olympics. She led from the first dive and won by nearly 50 points over silver medalist Krista Kohler of what was then the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany.
“It’s the most proud I’ve ever felt,” Chandler said. “Just representing the United States is amazing; getting a medal is the cherry on top.”
The year before, Chandler won the gold medal at the Pan American Games in Mexico City, but doing it in the Olympics was monumental.
“My life changed instantaneously when I saw my name at the top,” Chandler said. “It changed it forever. I’m where I am today because of what happened that night. My entire life, that experience has influenced everything I’ve done in some way.
“I’m continuing to represent my city, my state and my country. It’s opened all kinds of doors for me, and I’ve gotten to travel extensively because of it.”
After the 1976 Olympics, Chandler returned home to Alabama, finished high school and accepted a diving scholarship to Ohio State University. She later transferred to the University of California at Irvine and eventually graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in drawing and painting.
She competed in the 1978 World Championships and qualified for the U.S. 1980 Olympics team, but the United States boycotted the Moscow Olympics to protest the Soviet Union’s presence in Afghanistan.
“You can’t really put into words how disappointing that was,” Chandler said. “I was so fortunate that I had already had a chance to compete.”
Chandler retired soon after the boycott because of back injuries and later became a diving commentator on television.
She began diving when she was 8 years old at the Mountain Brook Swim and Tennis Club, where her mother, Kay, a former diver, was the swim team manager. Chandler went on to win more than 100 first-place medals in diving competitions. She was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 1985 and the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1987.
Intense Pressure
She said the hardest thing she had to do in her Olympic career was make the team, especially in 1976 because the U.S. had plenty of depth in diving.
“The U.S. is different because the only way you can become an Olympian is to make the team,” Chandler said. “I remember in my sport, a male diver had won every national competition for four years and he barely hit his toe on the diving board during the U.S. Trials and it threw him off, and he didn’t make the team. It was horrible because athletes make sacrifices all the time just to make the team.”
Once on the team, Chandler had to manage her nerves. It’s the same advice she would give to athletes competing in Paris.
“I would tell them to make sure they stay in the moment as much as they can,” she said. “When I was competing in the Olympics, I could have talked myself off the ledge, but I told myself that these are the same 10 dives I’ve been doing and it’s just a matter of doing what’s next.
“If you start saying, ‘This is the Olympics,’ you will start putting more pressure on yourself. The only person who can put pressure on you is you. I’d say enjoy the moment and have fun.”
These days, Chandler, 65, is the director of community outreach for Vulcan Park & Museum after serving three years as director of development. Prior to joining VPM in 2021, Chandler spent 10 years in development and special events at organizations such as the Lakeshore Foundation and the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.
In two weeks, she will be keeping a keen eye on Paris.
“I participated in 1976 and I was on the 1980 team that didn’t participate because of the boycott,” Chandler said. “I was a spectator at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles and the 1996 Games in Atlanta. I am not going to Paris, but I will be watching, and I will be in LA for the 2028 Games.”
