Courtesy: USA Diving
Olympic silver medalists Delaney Schnell and Jessica Parratto won the women’s synchronized 10-meter title and Tyler Downs and Greg Duncan captured the men’s synchronized 3-meter title as the USA Diving National Championships continued Thursday in Morgantown, West Virginia.
Their victories also earned them spots on the U.S. team for this summer’s World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, Japan.
Schnell and Parratto scored 575.16 over two synchronized 10-meter lists to claim gold ahead of Katrina Young and Nike Agunbiade (528.00).
Parratto, a two-time Olympian who won synchro silver with Schnell at the 2020 Olympic Games, took time off after Tokyo and wasn’t sure if she was going to continue diving. She returned to dive on 1-meter, a non-Olympic event, at the 2022 USA Diving Winter National Championships in December and decided she wasn’t quite ready to call it a career.
“That’s when I decided that I was pretty sure I was coming back. I came out to test out the waters and had lots of conversations with Delaney. I was back on 10-meter by late February or early March, so it hasn’t been a long time. There’s still a lot to work on but I’m happy with the progress I’ve made in such a short time,” Parratto said.
She and Schnell competed together for the first time since Tokyo when they dove at a World Cup event in Montreal earlier this month.
“We only had one 10-meter workout before Montreal as well, so (Montreal) was definitely needed in order to perform here. There are still things we want to work on obviously, but I feel like the pieces are slowly falling together. Now that we know we’re going to worlds, we know exactly what we need to work on. We’re just excited to compete again,” Parratto said.
Schnell is also pleased with the progress they’ve made.
“Right now, we’re just trying to get back into it and trying to get back to where we were in Tokyo. I feel like Montreal was a good stepping stone, just to see where we were at and try to get a competition under Jess’s belt because it had been awhile for her,” Schnell said.
Downs and Duncan scored 812.28 points on their two men’s 3-meter synchro lists to claim their third synchronized national title together.
“I thought we came out and executed the majority of the meet. There are definitely some points that we left on the table, but our goal was to come in and qualify (for worlds) and that’s what we did. I’m proud of us,” Duncan said.
Nick Harris and Max Fowler finished second at 695.85, and Zachary Welsh and Jacob Welsh scored 682.89 points for bronze.
“We didn’t have any expectations. We did our dives how we know how to do them. We executed, and it was a fun time,” Downs said.
The USA Diving National Championships continue through May 24. Friday’s competition features preliminaries and finals for women’s synchronized 3-meter and men’s synchronized 10-meter.
