KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — In a departure from the last U.S. Olympic diving trials, Cassidy Cook and Sarah Bacon won the women's synchronized 3-meter dive on Monday to book their spots in Paris.
Cook and Bacon became the first divers on the U.S. team to earn a combined score of 629.82 points in two rounds of diving on the first day of the trials at the University of Tennessee Aquatics Center.
Bacon made her first Olympic team, narrowly missing out on a spot in 2020. Cook, a 2016 Olympian, became the first American female diver to make consecutive Olympic teams.
Cook and Bacon placed second in the synchro competition at the 2020 Trials behind Allison Gibson and Krista Palmer, and Bacon also placed third on the individual diving competition.
This time, Gibson and Palmer finished second with 599.49 points.
The winning duo, originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, finished the final with a 70.20-point score for their final dive, a 2 1/2 forward somersault and a single rotation. As soon as they hit the water, they knew they'd made the team.
“That was the moment when all the hard work paid off,” Cook said. “It doesn't always work that way. Sometimes you don't get the results you want. It's happened before.”
Bacon was considered a favorite to make the last Olympic team but was narrowly eliminated in two events, which motivated her to keep going.
“That lit a fire in me,” she said. “To be honest with you, I was planning on retiring after those Olympics, so I kept diving. I wanted to make the Olympic team.”
Bacon, Gibson and Palmer will compete for two spots on the Olympic team in the women's 3-meter individual event, where Palmer won bronze at the Tokyo Olympics, one of three medals for the U.S. team.
The trial continues until Sunday.
