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.