Olympic silver medalist diver Michael Hixon wins 1-meter USA Winter National Championship

Staff and wire reports

Published: 12-19-2016 10:18 PM

Michael Hixon is headed to Budapest next summer.

The Amherst native and Olympic silver medalist placed first in the 1-meter event at the USA Diving Winter National Championships, Monday at Ohio State’s McCorkle Aquatics Pavilion.

The Indiana junior qualified for worlds along with runner-up Steele Johnson.

Hixon, who won bronze on 1-meter at the 2015 World Championships, finished Monday with 825.40 points over two lists of dives to win his second national title on the event and his first since 2011.

Hixon entered the finals in second place after Friday’s preliminaries and took the lead after scoring 72 points on his second-round reverse 1½ with 2½ twists in the finals. He scored 72 or more points on three other dives, including 79.90 on his inward 2½ pike in the last round.

“This was a great competition. You really can’t miss. You have to be on your game the entire night. It was a lot of fun,” said Hixon in a USA Diving press release. “I knew it was going to be a fight, and I just needed to stay in it one dive at a time. I missed my reverse twister a little bit in the prelims and went 72 in the finals. It’s a good meet under my belt and it’s nice to be back diving again.”

The meet was Hixon’s first national competition since winning a silver medal with Sam Dorman in the men’s 3-meter synchronized springboard dive at the Rio Summer Olympics.

Colin Zeng, an Ohio State diver from China, finished third with 801.55 points but international divers are considered exhibition divers and cannot displace a U.S. athlete from receiving a medal or advancing to the next round. Dorman, who led after the preliminaries, was awarded the bronze medal after finishing with 780 points.

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