PARIS – When the Chinese duo turned up afterward, Olympic gold medals around their necks, one of the morning’s silver medalists greeted them with cheers and a fist bump.
American diver Kassidy Cook, truly, couldn’t have seemed happier.
Some of that was Cook, who wears a shining, wide-eyed personality that would light up any room. Some of it was a sign of how close-knit and friendly diving can be at the highest level.
But such a moment, too, spoke to a cemented reality in international diving: There is China – and then there’s everyone else vying for second place.
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Such was the case in Saturday’s synchronized springboard competition at the Aquatics Center, during which Cook and teammate Sarah Bacon performed well and won the race for second. They didn’t have a mishap in five dives. They beat out six other tandems and claimed Team USA’s first medals of the Paris Games.
But their score of 314.64 finished far behind Chang Yani and Chen Yiwen (337.68), who batted leadoff in the diving order – one spot in front of Cook and Bacon – during each round and as expected, smoothly extended China’s 20-year dominance of the sport into a new Olympics.
“The performance was normal,” Yani said afterward through a translator, a shoulder-shrug of an assessment that could have come across as arrogant if it wasn’t so true.
This was normal for China, which has won every Olympic gold medal in women’s diving since 2004.
“They kind of set the tone for the competition and maybe pushed me and Sarah to put together five solid dives,” Cook said. “I don’t think we had our all-time best performance out there today, but we had a really solid performance, and it’s something that I’m very proud of. I’m very pleased with the silver medal. … This thing is pretty heavy, but I’m going to be wearing it all day.”
The Americans were in the top three all morning, but they weren’t assured of silver until Australian Anabelle Smith “landed on the side of the board” on approach, causing her to flub her final dive.
Needing only a 71.05 to pass the U.S. for silver (and having topped that score in their previous two dives), Smith and Maddison Keeney instead posted a 48.6, dropping them to fifth and allowing Great Britain’s Yasmin Harper and Scarlett Mew Jensen (302.28) to jump onto the podium instead.
Smith screamed underwater at what had just befallen her team.
“Pretty brutal,” she said. “I can’t change it now, so no point dwelling on it. … That stuff happens. It happens to the best of the best, and unfortunately it was my day today.”
Silver, meanwhile, made for the best U.S. finish in women’s synchronized springboard since Kelci Bryant and Abby Johnston did the same in 2012.
They have a good story, Cook and Bacon missed the previous Olympics largely because of a shoulder injury that hampered Cook during the 2021 U.S. trials. Bacon was planning to retire if she’d made it then. But she didn’t, and the two best friends kept working for a moment that arrived Saturday.
“Our Olympic trials is a lot more stressful than it is here,” Bacon said. “We’ve competed against these girls internationally before, so we knew that we were capable of being on that podium. So we were able to just get out there, relax, have fun and dive our best.”
In doing so, they raised awareness about one of the best nicknames – Cook ‘n Bacon – you’ll find in American sports.
U.S. fans in the seats here Saturday wore shirts hyping the nickname. One even wore a bacon suit, complete with a chef’s hat and a spatula. Though that was Marissa Cicione, Cook’s friend from college, who’d brought it to the Olympic trials, too.
“She’s probably one of the most supportive/funniest people I know,” Cook said. “I’m so happy she was able to make it out here.”
Cicione was able to be in Paris to watch Cook and Bacon win silver, attending alongside Cook’s boyfriend Ryan Swingle. Both are from Philadelphia. “We booked our tickets before she even qualified,” Swingle said.
Now done for the 2024 Olympics after the first few hours, Cook plans to stay in Paris and cheer on teammates. That’ll include Bacon, who’s set to compete in the individual springboard.
This was a great day for both. A celebration for two Americans who’d earned it.
But technically, it wasn’t an Olympic victory.
In women’s diving, for now at least, it seems only one nation gets to enjoy those.
“The Chinese have been the gold standard in diving for decades now,” Cook said. “We study a lot of their film. We love watching them. But we’re also peers with them, and the goal is to beat them one day.”
Reach Gentry Estes at gestes@gannett.com and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) @Gentry_Estes.