'Splash' ABC Season 1 Finale: Rory Bushfield Winner of Celebirty Diving Compeition, Nicole Eggert Back Flopped into Second Place in Final Episode

The last "splash" of season 1 was made Tuesday night on ABC, as the final 3 celebrity divers remaining in the diving competition (Nicole Eggert, Drake Bell, & Rory Bushfield) competed in hopes of becoming the first-ever winner of "Splash" in the May 7th finale episode.

Rory Bushfield, the extreme skier, prevailed over actress Nicole Eggert in the final dive-off, who back flopped her way to second place. Bushfireld was crowned the winner of the 8 week diving competition and earned the "the greatest celebrity diver of all-time" title, along with a crystal "Splash" trophy.

The three finalists each made one final dive on last night's episode, which was scored by judges David Boudia and Steve Foley. Then the remaining two with the highest scores moved on to the dive-off, where the studio audience ultimately picked Rory as the winner.

Former Nickelodeon star, Drake Bell was eliminated in the first round of dives after attempting a risky inward one and a half flip, a dive which he greatly struggled with in the past. He came up "less than vertica"l on his entry, thus pulling in 7s from both judges and eliminating him from the final dive-off round.

"It was really awesome to be able to learn this stuff and hang out with all these people," Drake said following his departure from the compeition. "I've made great friends here and I just hope one day I'll be as badass as Rory. I can only hope."

Nicole Eggert made it through the first diving round with a handstand somersault that scored 8.5s, and Bushfield (still competing with a busted eardrum) averaged 9.25 for his double-double execution (two back flips and two twists with a feet-first entrance).An impressed Boudia noted that if Bushfield had added half a twist and half a dive to enter head-first, it would have been the dive Boudia did to win the gold in the Olympics.

With Nicole & Rory diving in to the final "Splash" dive-off, Eggert was up first. The Baywatch star knew she had to do something risky to have a chance at beating outt her extreme athlete opponent. 

"It's been unbelievable. I'm so happy inside. I figured if I'm going against Rory, I have to come up with something good, right? So I've never done this, but I'm going to try a double back flip off the seven-meter. Go big or go home!" Nicole said prior to her final dive, which resulted in an unfortunate back flop. The brutality of her back-smack landing was felt by everyone in attendance of the competition, as well as the viewers at home. Eggert was a real trooper and shook it off after a moment, but had a pretty good idea that her flop wouldn't earn her the "Splash" crown.

Bushfield took to the 10m platform to do his final dive: a beautifully executed double front flip landing head first.

While the judges gave their final remarks, the audience would be the ones to officially decide the winner of the competition.

"Nicole has a heart of a champion and has been through hell and back in this competition. But Rory did the dive of his life. He finally did that real dive like I said on Night 1. He did that front two-and-a-half straight up and down," David said after the performance.

In the end, Rory's skill won out over Nicole's "heart" and the audience rightfully chose Bushfield as the first-ever "Splash" winner.

"I don't think any skier would be impressed if I got beat by a couple of actors," the extreme athlete previously stated. Luckily, Rory won't have to recieve any backlash from fellow extreme skiers, as he adds #1 celebrity diver to his list of athletic accomplishments.

Bushfield said he kept himself motivated during the competition by thinking of his late wife, freestyle skier Sarah Burke, the 4-time Winter X Games gold medalist who died in January 2012 due to a fall in the halfpipe during training.

And with that, the first season (which may be the only season) of ABC's newest reality show "Splash" came to an end. WIll Splash be back for an encore next season? We'll have to wait and see...