Former Blue Devil standout Abby Johnston teamed with Laura Ryan to capture the women’s synchronized 3-meter springboard title Saturday, Dec. 20 at the USA Diving Winter National Championships. The national title was the first for the synchronized diving pair.
Johnston shined in her return to her hometown, as she and Ryan led the field with a score of 291.90 in Friday’s preliminaries and started off Saturday’s final on a strong note. The duo’s finals list included an award of 71.10 on an inward 2 ½ somersault for a 3.00 degree of difficulty. Johnston and Ryan concluded their six dives with a total score of 597.30 to collect their first national title as a synchro pair.
“This is my first national title with Laura. We brought it together at the last minute because we’ve both been really busy and haven’t had a lot of training this fall, but we naturally dive very similar. It’s great that it turned out the way it did,” said Johnston, who just finished her first term of medical school at Duke.
Johnston and Ryan won the same event at the USA Diving World Cup Synchronized Diving Trials last April and dove together in the preliminaries of the women’s synchronized 3-meter competition at the 2014 FINA Diving World Cup in Shanghai last summer.
Johnston also advanced to Sunday’s individual 3-meter final, where she placed third with a combined score of 902.40. Ariel Rittenhouse took first at 912.65 and Ryan was second with 904.50 points.
Diving news is courtesy of Duke Swimming and Diving.