(L-R) Katrina Young and Jessica Parratto celebrate after winning the women's 10-meter platform final at the 2016 U.S. Olympic Team Trials For Diving at Indiana University Natatorium on June 25, 2016 in Indianapolis.
Jessica Parratto’s Olympic dance card got more crowded for Rio while Katrina Young earned her first Olympic berth as they took first and second, respectively, in women’s individual 10-meter platform at the U.S. Olympic Trials for Diving Saturday night at the Indiana University Natatorium in Indianapolis.
Already on the 2016 U.S. Olympic Team with partner Amy Cozad as the U.S. women’s synchronized 10-meter tandem, Parratto scored the chance to compete individually as well. Carrying a 69-point lead into Saturday’s final round, she cruised with a solid performance, staying ahead of a rough-and-tumble battle for the second Olympic spot. Young began the evening in fourth place, 25.6 points away from second, but slowly advanced up the standings while Murphy Bromberg and Cozad stumbled on their later dives, propelling Young into second place and onto the Olympic team.
Parratto won with a total score of 1,030.05, while Young surged to second with 982.10 points, vaulting past Bromberg, who finished third with 958.40, and Cozad, who was fourth with a score of 937.25.
Although Rio will be her first Olympic Games, Parratto, who turns 22 Monday, has a certain familiarity with Olympic success. Her father, Mike, coached one of the most decorated female swimmers in Olympic history, Jenny Thompson, who refers to Parratto as her “little sister.” Jessica’s mother Amy, a five-time diving All-American at Wellesley College, coached her until 2009, when she moved to Indianapolis to train. Parratto has won a total of seven senior national titles and has earned selection to the national team six times.
Young, 24, began diving at the age of 9 and earned a platform silver medal at the 2005 Junior Pan American Championships. Two years later she broke her right leg across the growth plate, which began a long and difficult journey back to form before making her first national team in 2013. Prior to Saturday night, she had only two podium finishes domestically, bronze medals at the 2012 and 2015 national championships. A two-time All-American for Florida State University, where she received a degree in commercial music in 2015, she becomes the second Olympian in her family. Her grandmother, Elaine Young, was a sprinter at the London 1948 Olympic Games.
The last time an American won an Olympic medal in women’s platform diving was the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, when Laura Wilkinson won gold.
