RESULTS

Just a few hours into the first day of the 2024 Paris Olympics, China, the United States, and Great Britain have their first medals.

The Chinese duo of Chang Yani and Chen Yiwen came to Paris as the three-time defending world champions in the women's diving synchronized 3m springboard competition. They continued their run of dominance, scoring 337.68 points on the way to a gold medal, the first for each diver in their Olympic debuts. 

Sarah Bacon and Kassidy Cook of the U.S. took silver with a total score of 314.64. It's the first Olympic medals for both divers, and first American medal in the event since 2012. 

"I thought it was crazy to call myself an Olympian to begin with, but now to be an Olympic medalist, I'm still processing everything that's happened in the last two hours. It's just unbelievable," Bacon said in an interview with NBC Olympics.

"It's surreal," Cook said. "It's still kind of setting in, but we've worked our butts off and I knew we were more than capable of getting up on that medal stand, but to actually see that dream come to fruition is just absolutely amazing. It feels like I'm living in a dream."

Australia was in third place heading into the final round, but on the final dive Australian diver Anabelle Smith came off the right side of the board, messing up the team's synchronization and taking the Australians off the podium. The Great Britain team of Scarlett Mew Jensen and Yasmin Harper snuck in in the final round to take bronze with a final score of 302.28.

Chang and Chen were the heavy favorites coming into Paris, and asserted themselves at the top of the leaderboard early. Jumping first - dive order was determined by random draw - the Chinese team took a more than two point lead after the first dive, scoring 52.8 points. 

According to Reuters, the crowd cheers in the stadium were so loud the Chinese duo almost couldn't hear their cue to walk to the end of the board and perform their first dives. 

"The spectators were cheering so loud that we missed it when they announced our first dive routine," Chen told reporters after the event on Saturday. "Then we heard the whistle. We were a bit confused if it was time for us to start off... so I asked her (Chang) and we kept looking for instruction from the referee."

After the first round, Great Britain was in second with a score of 50.4 on the first dive, and the U.S. was in third with a dive score of 49.8 points.

China had a score of 103.8 points through two dives. After Round 2, the U.S. moved into second with 100.8 points, and Great Britain and Germany were tied for third with a score of 96.6.

In the first two rounds, each group had to do dives with a 2.0 degree of difficulty. From Round 3 on, there were no restrictions on what kind of dive teams could complete. 

China and the U.S. performed the same dive - an inward two-and-a-half somersault - and China scored a 71.1 to take a nearly 10 point lead into the fourth round.

The U.S. stayed in second after three, trailing China, 181.2-171.9.

China and the U.S. again performed the same dive in the fourth round - a three-and-a-half somersault pike. The Chinese team appeared to be a bit out of timing and landed at a different distance, but it didn't affect the judging. They scored 79.98 points to keep a commanding lead.

Cook and Bacon received a score of 72.54 to take second, less than a point ahead of third place Australia.

Great Britain moved up from sixth to fourth in the penultimate round, but still trailed Australia by 12.

Performing the same dive again - a forward two-and-a-half somersault with one twist that carried a 3.1 degree of difficulty - China received a score of more than six points better than the U.S, running away with the win.

Harper and Mew Jensen finished with a score of 302.28.

Italy (Elena Bertocchi/Chiara Pellacani, 293.52 points) finished fourth. Australia (292.20) was fifth after scoring just 48.0 points on their final dive. Smith called her final dive "unlucky."

“We’re disappointed, obviously," she added. "I made a pretty big mistake when we were in a good position to medal, but that’s diving. Sometimes you can’t control that."

“That’s what makes diving so thrilling – literally anything can happen until the last dive," Keeney added. "For us it wasn’t it, but we’re still ticking along... We are at the Olympics, it’s been an amazing week so far, and the competition has just started, so I’m sure we’re going to have some success coming up.” 

Mew Jensen said shew as "massively in shock" watching the Australian's final dive.

"I’ve got no words. I can’t even speak," she added. "That’s a really easy dive for them. They are very talented. For that to happen, I don’t want to say it couldn’t have happened better, but for us, that was the ideal. To find joy out of someone else’s failure is really hard, but also, for us, it is really powerful.”

This is Great Britain's first medal in an Olympic women's synchronized diving event.

“First and foremost, I’m super proud of all the work we have put in together," Jensen said. "It’s been a little bit of a tough journey to get to this point, on Scarlett’s side in particular, because she had a little bit of a back injury a couple of months ago. So to be able to pull ourselves together today, and to deliver feels amazing... We’ve put in a lot of work, especially over the last year together. To come away with the medal shows that all of that has paid off."

Germany (Lena Hentschel/Jette Muller, 288.69), Ukraine (Viktoriya Kesar/Anna Pysmenska, 251.37), and France (Nais Gillet/Juliette Landi, 240.03) finished sixth, seventh, and eighth.

Cook was diving in her second Olympics. She competed in the individual springboard at the 2016 Rio Olympics, and teamed up with Bacon, her longtime friend, to try to make this year's Games. The two won the U.S. Trials to give Bacon her first trip to the Olympics after four tries.

Chang and Chen will both go for gold again in the individual springboard, where they're again the favorites to finish first and second. 

Bacon will also compete in the individual springboard. She finished fifth in the event at the world championships this year.

"I think I need a couple of days to kind of let everything sink in and process everything that's happened in the last couple hours, but then after that I'll be ready to get back in the pool, start practicing my individual dives again, and then come the 7th (of August), I'll be ready to go," Bacon said.

"And I'll be up in the stands cheering my butt off," Cook added.