Cook and Bacon Win Synchro Silver at World Aquatics Diving World Cup
by USA Diving
USA’s Kassidy Cook and Sarah Bacon won the silver medal in women’s synchronized 3-meter and Tyler Downs and Nike Agunbiade secured spots in the individual men’s 3-meter and women’s 10-meter finals as the World Aquatics Diving World Cup kicked off Friday in Montreal.
Cook and Bacon scored 315.09 points to finish behind the Chinese pair of Chang Yani and Chen Yiwen, who took gold with 329.43 points in the 3-meter synchro final. Canadians Pamela Ware and Mia Vallee were third at 302.61. The Americans were in second place throughout the entire event. Their fourth-round front 3 ½ pike scored 77.19 points for the highest scoring dive by any team in the contest, and they finished out their list with 72 points on a front 2 ½ with one twist.
Downs finished sixth with 403.55 points in the men’s 3-meter preliminary to qualify for Sunday’s final. In 13th place after four rounds, Downs came through with his two highest-scoring dives in the final two rounds. His reverse 3 ½ tuck scored 82.25 points in round five to move him to sixth place, and he followed with 75.25 points on a reverse 1 ½ with 3 ½ twists in the last round.
Agunbiade qualified for the women’s 10-meter final after scoring 281.30 points for ninth place in the preliminaries. She opened the contest with 62.40 points on a back 2 ½ with 1 ½ twists and then scored between 52.50 and 57.60 on her next four dives to secure a spot in the finals on Sunday.
Zach Cooper and Max Flory paired together for sixth place in Friday's men’s synchronized 10-meter final. The duo scored 381.93 points, while China’s Lian Junjie and Yang Hao took gold at 456.72. Kirill Boliukh and Oleksii Sereda of Ukraine scored 412.74 for silver, and Great Britain’s Matthew Lee and Noah Williams finished with 403.98 points for bronze. Cooper and Flory were in seventh place with two rounds to go and moved up one spot after scoring 77.76 points on their back 2 ½ with 2 ½ twists in round five.
Andrew Capobianco also competed in Friday’s individual preliminaries and scored 366.70 points to finish 14th on 3-meter, missing out on a spot in the 12-diver final. He missed his third- and fourth-round reverse and back 3 ½ tuck but came back strong with 85.50 points on his last dive, a front 4 ½ tuck.
The World Aquatics Diving World Cup continues through Sunday, May 7. Saturday’s competition features the individual women’s 3-meter and men’s 10-meter preliminaries as well as the men’s synchronized 3-meter and women’s synchronized 10-meter finals.