Her coach calls it "Blythish."

Blythe Hartley says it's just the way she operates.

Whatever it is, it was working for the Edmonton-born diver yesterday in preliminaries of the women's three-metre springboard here in Athens.

Hartley's 321.33 points ranked her second behind Russian Yulia Pakhalina's 347.04 going into today's semi-finals and final. Though the first two sets of marks are thrown out for the final, it's a good indication that Hartley's philosophy of self-deprecation is working.

"Blythish is completely opposite, contrary to any sort of sport psychology theory," Hartley's coach, Mitch Geller, said yesterday. "That is, she starts talking about how she's going to humiliate herself, her country and anybody associated with anybody she has ever known.

MONTMINY WAS SAME

"It's a lot of positive self-talk," he said with a laugh, adding that Anne Montminy, who won a silver and a bronze in diving in Sydney, was the same. "It's just her way. You've got to really know them to know that this is more of a good sign than a bad sign."

Hartley, 22, recognizes it's a unique approach, but she's not about to change it now.

"It's interesting because I work differently from everyone else," Hartley said. "That's part of my feeling confident. When I'm really relaxed I never dive well."

Hartley is joined in the semis by Emilie Heymans, who blew a shot at a medal in Sunday's 10-metre platform when she missed her final dive.

Heymans, of Greenfield Park, Que., qualified seventh with a score of 305.04 after again scoring low on her final dive.

What happened on Sunday was so disappointing to Heymans, she said she woke up Monday not caring about the three-metre competition, but soon changed her mind.

"The next day I was more like, whatever, I don't really care about (the) three-metre," Heymans, 22, said. "But after I thought about it then I was like, 'I think it's a good opportunity to come back and do really well on my last event and not have a bad idea about this Olympics.' "

Today's final has some tough competition, including Guo JingJing of China, Australia's Irinia Lashko and the leader, Pakhalina.

Geller was pleased with both his divers' performances, but he knows getting to the podium won't be easy.

"It's not impossible," he said of a medal. "It's a struggle, it's tough, but you can see from the prelims, a lot of things can happen and Blythe can be very solid because she is stronger than the rest. She needs to be rewarded for that. We hope that just her giving (the judges) a taste of what she can do in the prelims where they can look at it and say, 'Wow, she's quite something' and hopefully that can transfer over into the final."