Abby Johnston and Kelci Bryant have earned the first two spots on the U.S. Olympic diving team.
They narrowly won the 3-meter springboard synchro final on Thursday night at the Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way, giving Johnston her first trip to the Olympics and Bryant her second.
“I’m in shock,” said Johnston, a Duke student whose previous biggest meet was last year’s world championships in Shanghai. “I couldn’t stop looking at the scoreboard to make sure that it’s real.”
Johnston and Bryant totaled 956.40 points in the final, with scores having carried over from the semifinal and preliminary rounds earlier in the week. Kassidy Cook and 2008 Olympian Christina Loukas finished second with 955.98 despite outscoring the winners in every round of the final. Only the winning team goes to the games.
“This is going to help us going into London, being in that high-pressure situation,” Bryant said.
Johnston and Bryant survived the tight final in which they never led by more than six points. Just two points separated them from Cook and Loukas over the final three dives.
Amanda Burke and Summer Allman finished third at 806.10.
Cook and Loukas included a tougher dive in their list than Johnston and Bryant. They totaled 67.89 points for a forward 31/2 somersault pike, which carries a 3.1 degree of difficulty. The highest degree of difficutly for Johnston and Bryant was 3.0.
Cook and Loukas dived just in front of Johnston and Bryant. They scored 78.30 on their final dive, earning mostly 8.0s for execution and 9.0s for synchronization on a forward 21/2 somersault with a full twist pike. That gave Cook and Loukas the lead by 76.98 points. Johnston didn’t listen to the scores before she and Bryant climbed the ladders to the boards.
“I totally looked at the scoreboard,” Bryant said. “Then I heard their scores and I was like, ‘Well, here it goes.’ Then I just told myself not to think.”
Johnston and Bryant walked onto the boards needing to pull off their backward 21/2 somersault to win.
They did it.
Johnston and Bryant scored 77.40, receiving 8.0s for execution and 9.0s for synchronization, and clinching trips to London by 0.42 points.
McCrory, Boudia win: Nick McCrory and David Boudia cruised to the men’s 10-meter platform synchro title and spots on the Olympic team.
The duo totaled 1,387.66 points in the final, completing a wire-to-wire victory after having led following the semifinal and preliminary rounds.
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