Jevon Tarantino Wins Second National Title With One-Meter Win

STANFORD, California, August 2. JEVON Tarantino won his second national title on 1-meter upon scoring 381.40 points Thursday at the Kaiser Permanente National Diving Championships at the Maas Diving Center.

Harrison Jones was second at 364.85 points, and Nick McCrory scored 351.20 points for third.

Tarantino, who also won the 2005 title, performed two new dives and capitalized on his high degree of difficulty. Three of his six dives had a DD of 3.2 or higher, highlighted by his last dive – a front 2 ½ with two twists, good for a 3.6 DD. He scored between 4.5s and 5.5s on that dive, one of the most difficult in the world.

"I stuck with my game plan and wanted to give myself a challenge," Tarantino said. "Only (China's) He Chong does that double out, so you just do the best you can. I wanted to experiment a little, and I had a good time out there."

While he didn't hit that dive – or his other new dive (a reverse 2 ½ pike) – Tarantino scored 8s and 9s on his other four dives and was able to secure the title.

Women's 10-meter quarterfinals and semifinals also were contested Thursday, with the top 12 performers from the semis advancing to Saturday's finals. 2000 Olympic gold medalist Laura Wilkinson dominated the field, scoring 392.60 points – nearly 60 more than her closest competitor. Heather Bounds was second at 335.95, followed by 2004 Olympian Cassandra Cardinell at 326.35.

Special thanks to USA Diving for contributing this report.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

Welcome to our community. We invite you to join our discussion. Our community guidelines are simple: be respectful and constructive, keep on topic, and support your fellow commenters. Commenting signifies that you agree to our Terms of Use

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x