Team USA divers won four medals, all in synchronized diving events, and two divers advanced to the individual finals at a FINA Grand Prix meet held July 15-17 in Bolzano, Italy.
The U.S. sent a young team of six junior divers with an eye on Tokyo 2020, and for four of them, the meet in Bolzano marked their first senior international competition. Nearly 30 countries participated in the meet.
Delaney Schnell (Tucson, Ariz.) and Zach Cooper (Greenwood, Ind.), the two divers on the U.S. team with previous senior international experience, each advanced to the individual 10-meter finals and finished fifth in their respective events.
Schnell, 17, scored 272.45 points for fifth in Saturday’s women’s 10-meter final, which was won by 2016 Olympian Minami Itahashi of Japan with 357.95 points. China’s Suo Miya was second with 312.20 points, and Canada’s Celina Toth was third at 308.40.
Cooper, 18, finished fifth with 390.35 points in a men’s 10-meter final won by China’s Yang Hao at 506.30. 2016 Olympian Benjamin Auffret of France took second at 447.20, and China’s Xu Zewei scored 428.50 points for third.
Thirteen-year-old Tarrin Gilliland (Liberty Hill, Texas/Midland, Texas) advanced to the women’s 10-meter semifinals and finished ninth overall with 278.90 points. Max Flory (Fairfax, Va.), 15, was 17th with 324.45 points in the men’s 10-meter preliminaries. Maria Coburn (Round Rock, Texas), 14, scored 241.95 for 18th in the women’s 3-meter preliminaries, with 17-year-old Brooke Schultz (Fayetteville, Ark.) finishing with 226.05 points for 23rd place. In Grand Prix competition, the top 12 divers from the preliminaries advance to one of two six-diver semifinals. The top three divers from each semifinal then advance to the finals.
Cooper, Flory and Gilliland each won a pair of medals in synchronized diving events.
Cooper and Gilliland paired for gold in the mixed synchronized 10-meter event. They scored 294.60 points to finish first in the three-team contest, with Italy’s Noemi Batki and Maicol Verzotto taking second at 277.80.
Gilliland also dove with Schnell in women’s synchronized 10-meter for silver in their first competition together. Gilliland and Schnell scored 291.24 points, just 1.92 points behind gold medalists Nana Sasaki and Matsuri Arai of Japan. China’s Ma Tong and Suo Miya finished third of five teams with 289.32 points.
On Friday, Cooper and Flory came away with bronze in men’s synchronized 10-meter after scoring 335.70 points to take third out of five teams. China’s Xu Zewei and Yang Hao were first with 390.69 points, followed by Germany’s Patrick Hausding and Martin Wolfram at 364.98 points.
Flory also dove with Schultz in Sunday’s mixed synchronized 3-meter contest and finished third with 246.93 points. Colombia’s Diana Pineda and Sebastian Villa were first at 287.91.
Schultz and Coburn scored 264.90 points to place fifth of 11 teams in Friday’s women’s synchronized 3-meter competition. Italy’s Tania Cagnotto and Francesca Dallape, who will compete together at the Olympic Games next month, won the gold medal with 289.92 points, finishing 2.2 points ahead of silver medalist Wang Han and Xu Zhihuan of China.
USA Diving contributed this report.