By Erin Keaveny, Swimming World Diving Contributor.
Team USA brought 16 divers to the the 2018 FINA Diving World Cup in Wuhan China, which concluded Sunday. From June 5 to 10, divers competed in 11 events including men’s and women’s platform, springboard, and synchro.
Despite a promising squad, which included Olympic silver medalists Sam Dorman, Steele Johnson and Michael Hixon, alongside Olympians Jessica Parratto and Katrina Young, Team USA is only bringing home two medals.
David Dinsmore earned an individual bronze in men’s ten meter platform, the only individual medal won by the United States. He finished behind Chen Aisen and Yang Jian from China.
The University of Miami diver‘s highest scoring dive was his reverse three-and-a-half tuck (307C), which received 9s from the judges, and scored 91.8 total points.
The individual medal was the second bronze Dinsmore earned at the meet.
The first event of the meet was the mixed team event. Dinsmore and Krysta Palmer represented the United States after winning a bronze medal in together last year. This year, the team came in third again, finishing behind the Ukrainian team and China’s golden pair.
The mixed event consists of a 3 dives from 3m and 3 dives from 10m. Half those dives are performed by a male competitor, and the other half by a female competitor, and each diver must compete at least one dive on each board. The team event was the only event that a Chinese team had never won, until this year
Dinsmore and Palmer started the meet tied for seventh after the first dive. Despite jumping to third place after the second round, they were standing in fifth place with one dive left.
Dinsmore performed the team’s final dive, a back two-and-a-half with two-and-a-half twists (5255B), on ten meter. He received 88.2 points from the judges, the highest scoring dive the team had all day. The dive pushed the Americans up to third place, helping the pair overcome the Malaysian team by one point.
Other notable showings from the Americans included fifth place finishes from Dorman and Hixon in men’s synchronized springboard, Parratto and Tarrin Gilliland in women’s synchronized platform, and Johnson and Brandon Loschiavo in men’s synchronized platform. Hixon also finished 9th in men’s 3m.
Beyond this years results, the FINA World Cup is a meet where teams can qualify for competition entries in future meets on the world stage.
This year team USA earned seven total spots for the 2019 World Series. Dismore and Palmer earned positions for their finishes in the mixed team event, as well as their individual events. Gilliand, Parratto, Johnson, Young, and Zachary Cooper also scored spots.
The team’s finishes also earned them slots for the mixed team event, and 10m and 3m mixed synchro events for the 2019 World Championships.