Michael Hixon competes at the Pan American Games Lima 2019 on Aug. 1, 2019 in Lima, Peru.
The year of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 is starting out almost perfectly for Michael Hixon.
Hixon won his third international medal of the year Saturday, capturing third place in the men’s individual 3-meter springboard at the FINA World Series series-opener in Montreal. Hixon finished second in both the individual and synchro 3-meter at a FINA grand prix meet last week in Rostock, Germany.
Hixon, a 2010 Youth Olympian who won a silver medal in the synchronized 3-meter in his Olympic debut at the Olympic Games Rio 2016, was the only American in the six-man finals and finished with a score of 425.65.
Philippe Gagne of Canada won the event with a score of 471.30, and Jack Laugher of Great Britain was second with a score of 431.05.
Hixon hit his biggest score on his final dive, scoring 83.60 on a 109C dive to grab third place ahead of Russia’s Nikita Shleikher. The 109C dive consists of 4.5 somersaults before hitting the water.
Hixon finished 10th in the individual 3-meter in Rio in 2016. He won a bronze medal at the 2019 Pan American Games, teaming up with Andrew Capobianco in the synchro 3-meter.
Hixon’s medal was the first won by an American this weekend in Montreal. Samantha Bromberg and Delaney Schnell made the finals in women’s 10-meter, but finished fifth and sixth, respectively.
Paul D. Bowker has been writing about Olympic sports since 1996, when he was an assistant bureau chief in Atlanta. He is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
