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Kassidy Cook and Sarah Bacon embraced as soon as they popped out of the pool after their fifth and final dive on Saturday morning.
They already knew they had likely done enough to secure the U.S.’s first medal of the Paris Olympics.
Cook and Bacon entered the final round of the women’s synchronized diving springboard final in second place behind China’s juggernaut team of Yani Chang and Yiwen Chen. The American duo needed a strong score to hold off teams from Australia and Great Britain in a tight battle for silver and bronze.
In the final round, Cook and Bacon secured silver with a solid score of 70.20 points with their forward 2 ½ somersaults, 1 twist dive. Great Britain’s Yasmin Harper and Scarlett Mew Jensen settled for bronze, 12 points behind the American duo. Australia’s Maddison Keeney and Anabelle Smith endured a disappointing final round and finished fifth.
“It means so much to me,” Cook said. “I was always dreaming about becoming an Olympic medallist, regardless of the color. To finish up there so early with one of my best friends in diving, it’s so unreal. I’m kind of lost for words.”
Team Cook’N Bacon, as Cook and Bacon are known, earned America’s first medal in women’s synchronized springboard diving since 2012. They were on pace to medal at the World Championships in Japan last year before a poor final-round performance caused them to slip to fourth place, six-tenths of a point out of a bronze medal.
This year, on a bigger stage, Cook and Bacon had no such issues. The only team to beat them were Chang and Chen, who have not lost a world diving event since 2022 and are expected to finish 1-2 in the solo springboard diving competition.
Bacon, 27, was competing in her first Olympics, while Cook represented the U.S. in Rio 2016 and placed 13th in the women’s springboard diving competition.
Both Cook and Bacon were in tears at Olympic Trials when they qualified for Paris. Now Team Cook’N Bacon has something more to celebrate.
“For both of us, the pressure on the Olympic trials to make it here is actually a bigger deal than being at the Olympics itself,” Bacon said. “Our trials set us up very well to perform our best.”
