Sarah Bacon, Kassidy Cook win Team USA’s first medal at the Paris Olympics

The United States won its first medal at the Olympic Games in Paris.

Sarah Bacon, 27, and Kassidy Cook, 29, won silver in Saturday’s 3-meter synchronized springboard competition at the Aquatics Centre. The American duo scored 314.64 points, which put them firmly in second place behind Chang Yani and Chen Yiwen of China.

Great Britain’s Tasmin Harper and Scarlett Mew Jensen took bronze with 302.28 points.

The silver medal marked Team USA’s first medal in women’s synchronized springboard since Kelci Bryant and Abby Johnston won silver in London in 2012.

This is Bacon’s Olympic debut. The Indianapolis native will also compete in the individual springboard in Paris.

Cook is from The Woodlands, Texas, and this is her second appearance at the Olympics.

The duo missed out on a ticket to Tokyo after finishing second at the U.S. Olympic trials in 2021.

Since the event was added in 2020, China has won gold six times in seven Games. The only loss was to Russia in 2000.

China has ruled diving for decades, and three years ago in Tokyo, it won seven of eight gold medals. But it’s never pulled off the elusive gold sweep. 

Starting with the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics where China claimed its first diving gold, it had won 47 of 64 gold medals in diving. Add to that 23 silver and 10 bronze.

If you begin counting from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, China won 27 of 32 gold at the Olympics.

Meanwhile, Team USA hasn’t had an Olympic gold medalist in diving since David Boudia in the men’s platform in 2012.