RIO DE JANEIRO — Michael Hixon trained for two years to perfect the dive known as 109C.
With partner Sam Dorman on Wednesday, it earned him a silver medal in the Rio Olympics.
The Americans scored 450.21 on six dives in the men’s synchronized 3-meter springboard, 4.11 points behind Great Britain, which scored 454.32.
Dorman and Hixon, diving in the Olympics for the first time, beat the bronze medalists from China, the pre-event favorites, by 10.62 points.
“It feels so great,” the Amherst native from Indiana University said afterward. “We’ve been working for this for a really long time, and for it to come to fruition is really special.”
The 109C — four and a half somersaults with a front tuck — was the second-most challenging dive in the competition, with a degree-of-difficulty score of 3.8. The Americans saved the dive for the sixth and final round, where they earned the highest-rated dive of the day at 98.04.
The duo finished the competition much differently than it started. In the first two rounds, Hixon and Dorman struggled through the voluntaries, earning 50 points each for their simple reverse dives. Only Brazil held a lower score on the board. Their chances appeared slim when it started to rain on the 6,400-seat Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre in Olympic Park. But as it turned out, Dorman and Hixon had been praying for the rain.
Before leaving for the Olympics, former Team USA diver Scott Donie told Hixon and Dorman to hope for bad weather. Dorman often trains in poor conditions in Miami, Hixon said, and the pair felt confident that the other seven teams on the board in the event might not be as comfortable with the rain.
“Anyone who was willing to go out there and dive their best in the rain and not let it bother them had an advantage,” said Hixon.
That turned out to be the Americans.
The teams competing in the early rounds scored higher and higher, leaving Hixon and Dorman far behind. But then came Round 3 — the divers’ first chance to attempt more difficult dives. The duo soared as the degree of difficulty grew.
“I’m definitely more comfortable with our stronger, harder dives,” Dorman said. “To be honest, I’m not a big fan of the voluntaries. I’d prefer to be able to go a 100 percent.”
They finished Round 3 in third place, just behind Great Britain and Russia.
With each round that followed, Hixon and Dorman found their rhythm, increasing their scores and dive difficulty until the fifth round. By then, they had climbed to second place. With one dive left — the dive they’d been training for — every point mattered.
Right before the U.S. stepped onto the springboards, Mexico asked the judges for a redive on its team’s attempt of the 109C, a delay that took several minutes. The request was rejected before Hixon and Dorman came out. Later, they agreed the delay had helped them clear their heads.
They took three running steps, jumped and cleared their boards. With the twin splashes they left in the water, the crowd roared. Hixon and Dorman hadn’t seen their score yet, but they could feel it. The dive was nearly flawless, prompting the judges to award the highest synchronization score of the day. Hixon yelled, pumping his fists into the water before getting out to hug Dorman.
“I was definitely very excited and very in the moment,” Hixon said. “I was just so happy with our performance. We had a pretty big lead … going into that dive, so as soon as that dive happened, I pretty much knew we were a medal lock. I just didn’t know what color.”
The three countries that followed tried to replicate the dive, all of them failing to rival the ease with which Hixon and Dorman stayed together, looking like reflections of each other as they made their descent into the pool.
After the last two divers, it was certain — the duo had just made U.S. history. It was the highest Olympics finish in the event for an American pair.
“We thought we had a chance to win gold tonight,” Hixon said, “but I am happy with the silver.”
Cat Cardenas is reporting from the Rio Olympics for the University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism .