USA Diving Championships: Anna Kwong, Lyle Yost Claim 1-Meter Titles
Anna Kwong and Lyle Yost won the 1-meter titles at the USA Diving Championships Monday night.
Kwong, who dives at TCU and is diving unattached at the meet, scored 534.85 points over two lists to pull away from Hailey Hernandez by 12 points. Hernandez scored 522.65. Sophie Verzyl was third in 518.30, followed by Lily Witte’s 483.55.
It’s the second title of the week for Kwong, who teamed with Verzyl to be one of the co-champions in the 3-meter women’s synchro. It came on the fifth day of nine at the meet hosted by Auburn University.
Hernandez, an Olympian in 2021 on 3-meter diving for Longhorn Aquatics, led the way in prelims, seven points up on Kwong. Hernandez extended her lead to 15 points with the best dive in the first round of the finals. But Kwong started to chip away. She had the highest scoring dive of each of the next two rounds, scoring 125 points to 99 from Hernandez to take the lead.
Kwong had a slight bobble in Round 4, scoring just 37.70 points to 46.80 for Hernandez. Kwong maintained the lead by 1.4 points heading into the final round, then blasted a 107C for 61.50 points, the top dive of the round to take the title.
“It was a tough final,” Kwong told USA Diving. “I’m really happy and grateful. We decided to put my (front 3 ½) in right after the prelim. I was kind of playing around with the risk versus the reward. It was definitely stressful because I missed my twister, but I was choosing to embrace with confidence and give it my all.”
Yost, the 2024 NCAA 1-meter champion who was competing for the first time since Olympic Trials in 2024, scored 766.70 points over his two lists. That was 21 clear of Nick Harris and a crowd of divers tightly bunched up in a back-and-forth final.
Yost got the jump in the final by front-loading his program. His 403.20 put him just 2.8 points ahead of Maxwell Miller after prelims/quarterfinals and 20 points clear of the rest. Yost’s 5152B produced 68.80 points, the best dive of the first round of six in finals.
He slipped a tad with his next two dives, even falling a tenth of a point behind Miller after two rounds. But Miller scored 27.3 points in the third round and 19.5 in the fourth, the worst of the eight finalists in each. Even two dives of 70 or more points in the final two rounds couldn’t rally him past a final placement of fifth.
Yost steadied himself with consistent, middle-of-the-pack dives. A score of 73.1 on his fifth dive, a 405B, sealed it.
“I took a pretty good break after Olympic Trials, and the focus is that I want to be taking a lot of these dives up to 3-meter,” Yost said. “We decided we’re going to take it slow and just compete 1-meter here. We’ll let the 3-meter dives build up and take a little more time to get ready. But it feels great to be back on 1-meter and get a chance to defend the title again. It’s good to be back surrounded by the energy here. I’ve missed it.”
Five different divers produced the highest-scoring dive of one of the six finals round (Jacob Jones, who finished sixth, was the only one to do so twice). Harris was steady, scoring 745.45 for second, rising from fourth at the midway point of the final. Collier Dyer finished third with a score of 740.70. Jack Ryan was fourth in 735.00, with Miller fifth.
