INDIANAPOLIS – Former Blue Devil standout Abby Johnston teamed with Laura Ryan to claim the gold medal in women’s 3-meter synchronized diving Wednesday evening at the USA Diving Winter National Championships. With the win, the duo qualified for February’s FINA Diving World Cup in Rio de Janeiro.
After finishing second in Wednesday’s preliminary round with 282.90 points, Johnston and Ryan earned an award of 304.5 on their finals list. Their total score of 587.40 put them 0.6 points ahead of second-place finishers Ariel Rittenhouse and Qiongjie Drew (586.80).
Less than seven points separated the top three teams heading into finals, with Rittenhouse and Drew leading the way after the morning session. Johnston and Ryan slipped to third place with one round remaining in finals, but came up with 72 points on a front 2 ½ with one twist to edge the field.
“We knew it was really close and it was a stressful meet,” Johnston said. “We knew it was really close and we had to hit that last dive, but we’ve been practicing for stressful situations. We did a practice meet two weeks ago and they made us stop in the middle of it and told us we needed a certain amount of points to win. So tonight, it was like we’d done this before.”
The FINA Diving World Cup in February will provide an opportunity for Johnston and Ryan to qualify the United States to the 2016 Olympic Games.
Current Duke freshman Mackenzie Willborn was also in action Wednesday at the IUPUI Natatorium in Indianapolis. She teamed with Grace Cable to place 11th in the 3-meter synchro final with a combined score of 454.92 points.
Both Willborn and Johnston are slated to compete in the individual 3-meter competition, which begins with preliminaries and semifinals Friday and concludes with Sunday’s finals.
Swimming news courtesy of Duke Swimming & Diving.