Tokyo silver medalists Jessica Parratto and Delaney Schnell cruised to win the U.S. Olympic Diving Trials women’s synchronized platform title.
Tyler Downs and Greg Duncan needed a clutch final dive in the men’s springboard competition to secure their spot in Paris.
The synchro portion of Trials finished with two contrasting events in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Parratto and Schnell tallied 607.14 points and prevailed by a whopping 113.01.
In Paris, they will become the first U.S. synchro team to compete in two Olympics together since synchro events debuted at the 2000 Sydney Games.
In Tokyo, Parratto and Schnell’s silver matched the best U.S result in any Olympic women’s diving event since Laura Wilkinson’s individual platform gold in 2000.
Parratto left competition after the Tokyo Games, moved to Philadelphia and became a healthcare recruiter. Schnell helped lure her back into the sport.
They reunited and took bronze at the 2023 World Championships, then were eighth at the most recent worlds in February.
“I never thought I’d be here and definitely not believing that I’d go to my third Olympics,” Parratto said on NBC Sports. “I have this one (Schnell) to thank for sure for that one, for pulling me out of retirement.”
Parratto, who turns 30 on June 26, will be the oldest U.S. woman to dive at an Olympics since Wilkinson in 2008. She can become the second-oldest U.S. woman to win an Olympic diving medal, according to the OlyMADMen. Mary Ellen Clark was 33 when she took platform bronze in 1996.
“When I was a young diver, Jessica was one of the divers I looked up to,” the 25-year-old Schnell said. “I wanted to be her.”
Later, Downs and Duncan held off Tokyo silver medalist Andrew Capobianco and Quinn Henninger by 2.37 points.
Downs and Duncan went into the last round with a 20.01-point lead.
Then Capobianco and Henninger nailed their forward 4 1/2 somersault tuck to put the pressure on. Downs and Duncan delivered on the final dive of the competition to hold them off.
“It was just up to us to feed from the crowd’s energy,” Duncan said.
Downs is going to his second Olympics. In 2021, he won the Olympic Trials in individual springboard, then placed 23rd in the event in Tokyo. He was the youngest American man to dive at an Olympics since Greg Louganis in 1976, according to the OlyMADMen.
Duncan is a first-time Olympian. Like Downs, he formerly competed for Purdue.
Downs and Duncan placed fourth in synchro springboard at the 2023 World Championships, coming 3.87 points shy of the first U.S. medal in the event at worlds since 2009.
At the Olympics, the U.S.’ most successful synchro event has been men’s springboard. A different American pair won a medal at each of the last three Games.
Capobianco and Michael Hixon took silver in Tokyo. Hixon then retired. Capobianco, who had knee surgery in late fall 2023, can still make the team for Paris in individual springboard.
Trials continue with the women's springboard and men’s platform prelims and semifinals (broadcast schedule here).