DIVING: Deifre Freeman and Jessica Parratto Win Silver at Puerto Rico GP

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Deidre Freeman (Grinnell, Iowa/Iowa City, Iowa) and Jessica Parratto (Dover, N.H./Bloomington, Ind.) won the silver medal in synchronized 3-meter to close out the FINA Puerto Rico Grand Prix on Sunday.
The American pair finished with 272.40 points to take the silver medal behind China’s Wu Chunting and Qu Lin, who scored 305.40 points for gold. Puerto Rico’s Luisa Jiminez and Jeniffer Fernandez were third at 266.25.
Freeman and Parratto were in seventh place after the two rounds of voluntary dives but came back strong on their three optional dives. Their back 2 ½ pike in round three scored 66.60 points and moved them into second place. They held on to that position for the duration of the contest, scoring 55.80 points on their reverse 2 ½ pike and 63 points on their front 2 ½ with one twist.
“I was really relaxed because my stressful (optional) dives are my front and my inward, and today I didn’t have to do them. It’s always fun doing synchro because you get to share the experience. It was really windy today, and we got through things together. We got a little off on our front dive (in round two) because of the wind, but we came back and put three great optionals together,” said Freeman, who finished sixth in the individual 3-meter final on Saturday.
For Parratto, it was her first senior international competition on springboard. She also competed in the individual and synchronized 10-meter events earlier in the week, finishing fourth in synchro and 11^thindividually.
“We just wanted to have fun. It was my international debut on 3-meter, and it couldn’t have gone better. To deal with all the components we were fighting against, like the wind, I thought it was great,” Parratto said.
The silver medal was the second trip to the podium this week for Team USA. Samantha Pickens(Murrysville, Pa./Tucson, Ariz.) won the individual 3-meter bronze Saturday.