This photograph of Olympic diver and Stanford student Clarida Hunsberger was taken by Elliott at Searsville Lake in San Mateo County during the 1924 Olympic try-outs. Hunsberger participated in the platform diving event at both the 1924 and 1928 Olympics, and was interviewed by the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles in May 1987 as part of their Olympian’s Oral History project. During the interview, Hunsberger recalled her experience at Stanford under coaches Greta and Ernst Brandsten: “Stanford at that time had 500 women and a couple thousand men—that was that era. They had very few women who were interested in diving and, in fact, one of the Brandstens would come out early every morning. I’d go to the women’s swimming pool early in the morning. I can remember walking out on that board with frost on the board; it mattered not what time a year it was or what the weather was. And it didn’t matter to the Brandstens. They were really gung-ho on having a woman who would be a diver. And so then came the day that Ernst Brandsten said to me, ‘You know, today we’re going to take you up to Searsville Lake.’ Now Searsville Lake was about nine miles from the Stanford campus. And up there—the lake was actually a dammed lake—they had platforms built on that dam that the Brandstens were responsible for constructing, because there were quite a few men divers who would work out up there. I didn’t have a car to get up there. There were times that I walked to Searsville Lake and walked back.”
Hunsberger says she tried out for both the 1924 and 1928 Olympics on the West Coast, continuing on by train to New York for the final qualifiers, eventually placing fourth in the 1924 Olympic high-diving event. She points out, “Photography was in its infancy; nothing like the split-second timing pictures that they would get today. So, with the Olympic Games, there couldn’t be the worldwide interest that we have now—not even countrywide. Many people had probably never heard of the Olympic Games, I’m pretty sure. Today most people would know what we were talking about.” With that in mind, this action shot by Harold Elliott is impressive for its time.
Hunsberger’s experiences at the 1924 and 1928 Olympics are recounted in the complete interview, a transcript of which can be accessed at http://www.la84foundation.org/6oic/OralHistory/OHHunsbergerNeher.pdf.
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