David Boudia is taking an indefinite (and perhaps permanent) break from diving to pursue another career -- real estate.
The four-time Olympic medalist won’t compete internationally this season and plans to announce in the late summer or fall whether he will return to the sport for a fourth Olympic run or retire.
“It’s a hard decision,” Boudia said, according to NBC’s affiliate in Indianapolis. “Sometimes I wake up in the morning, and I’m, like, ‘I do have more in the tank,’ and I get that itch, but I’ve not once since Rio looked and been, like, ‘Man, I miss training. I miss going to this competition.’
“I see posts of all my teammates going back to training, and there’s not, like, this burning desire in me to get back up on a three-story building and fling myself off and hurt the next day because you’ve trained really hard.”
Boudia will miss the world championships in July for the first time in his senior career, which has dated to 2005, when he was 16 years old. He might compete in the national championships in August.
Boudia, 27, earned individual platform gold and bronze at the last two Olympics and synchro bronze and silver in London and Rio, respectively. Only Greg Louganis owns more Olympic diving medals among Americans.
Boudia recently added a real-estate license and is now an agent for Keller Williams in Lafayette, Ind. He and wife Sonnie are expecting a second child.
If he returns to diving, Boudia said he may stick to one event to limit his training load, possibly springboard, according to the NBC affiliate in Indianapolis.
Boudia dabbled in springboard in the last Olympic cycle and even went 11 months between individual platform competitions.
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