Johnston and Bryant earn Olympic diving berth

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FEDERAL WAY, Wash. (AP) — Abby Johnston and Kelci Bryant have earned the first two spots on the U.S. Olympic diving team.

They narrowly won the 3-meter springboard synchro final Thursday night, giving Johnston her first trip to the Olympics and Bryant her second.

Johnston and Bryant totaled 956.40 points in the final, with scores having carried over from the semifinal and preliminary rounds earlier in the week. Kassidy Cook and 2008 Olympian Christina Loukas finished second with 955.98 despite outscoring the winners in every round Thursday.

Johnston and Bryant survived the tight final in which they never led by more than six points. Just two points separated them from Cook and Loukas over the final three dives.

Amanda Burke and Summer Allman finished third at 806.10.

Cook and Loukas included a tougher dive in their list than Johnston and Bryant. They totaled 67.89 points for a forward 3 ½ somersault pike, which carries a 3.1 degree of difficulty. Johnston and Bryant's highest DD was 3.0.

Cook and Loukas dived just in front of Johnston and Bryant. They scored 78.30 on their final dive, earning mostly 8.0s for execution and 9.0s for synchronization on a forward 2 ½ somersault with 1 twist pike. That gave Cook and Loukas the lead by 76.98 points.

Johnston and Bryant walked onto the boards needing to pull off their backward 2 ½ somersault to win.

They did it.

Johnston and Bryant scored 77.40, receiving 8.0s for execution and 9.0s for synchronization, and clinching trips to London by 0.42 points.

Cook was left in tears on the deck.

Deidre Freeman and Veronica Rydze were fourth and Carrie Dragland and Bianca Alvarez were fifth in the eight-team final.