Hailey Hernandez Wins 1-Meter Bronze at Pan American Games

SANTIAGO, Chile – Hailey Hernandez picked up Team USA’s first diving medal at the Pan American Games with a bronze on 1-meter Sunday night, while Joslyn Oakley placed fifth in that same event.

Also on Sunday, Max Flory and Jordan Rzepka dove to a fourth-place finish in men’s synchronized 10-meter.

Hernandez came through with 261.75 points to finish third behind Canadians Pamela Ware and Mia Vallee, who won 1-meter gold (280.25) and silver (272.30), respectively. Oakley finished with 240.95 points.

Hernandez put together another consistent effort, scoring between 50.40 and  54.60 points on all five dives in the final. She finished fifth in the preliminaries.

“I’m super excited and really happy with my performance. Heading into the final, I felt like I was in a pretty good position, but I knew I had a lot to improve on from my prelim,” Hernandez said. “I just wanted to go out there with a lot of excitement and a lot of fun and just go and give it my best.”

“I kind of approached the final wanting to control my emotions more and focus on the technical aspects versus focusing on just getting the entry,” Oakley said. “I tried to not get ahead of myself and get my starts right.”

Flory and Rzepka finished with 360.96 points in the 10-meter synchro final, including 74.52 points on a back 2 ½ with 2 ½ twists and 74.10 points on a front 2 ½ with 3 twists.

“My takeaway was just feeling very comfortable. We don’t have to worry about timing very much. It all matches up really well. We’re just going to look to improve our individual dive scores, and that will make our scores go up in the next competition,” Flory said. “It was good to get the first meet out of the way and set a benchmark to see what we need to work on.”

“There were some pieces that were there and some that weren’t. I think our synchro went better than expected, and I’m excited to move forward,” Rzepka said.  

Mexico’s Randal Willars and Kevin Berlin won gold at 419.94, while Canadians Nathan Zsombor-Murray and Rylan Wiens took silver with 404.04 points. The Colombian pair of Sebastian Villa and Alejandro Solante won bronze at 383.19.

Diving at the Pan American Games continues through Wednesday. Monday’s competition features Tyler Downs and Jack Ryan in men’s 3-meter.