Team USA Divers Ship World-Class Performances at American Cup in Fort Lauderdale

2026 American Cup

All images courtesy of SRX Media Group and USA Diving

While the highlight focuses on Fort Lauderdale this week for what guarantees to be a star-studded showcase of prime swimming expertise, the world’s most elite divers have already delivered a premier occasion above the water, on the similar venue. 

The 2026 American Cup attracted a world-class discipline of divers from Australia, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Great Britain, Haiti, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea, Switzerland, Ukraine, in a spectacular four-day format that featured excessive diving alongside conventional diving occasions. 

Red, White, Blue… and Gold: Team USA Highlights

From begin to end, Team USA showcased its depth and power throughout diving disciplines and occasions, capturing the opening and shutting gold medals, together with others in between. 

Sophie Verzyl, 23, was among the many brightest stars for Team USA, getting into three occasions and coming away with three gold medals. She topped the rostrum within the ladies’s 3-meter, within the synchronized 3-meter alongside teammate Anna Kwong, and within the blended 3-meter and 10-meter staff occasion, together with Josh Hedberg, Sophie McAfee, and Jack Ryan.

Verzyl competed collegiately for the University of South Carolina, the place she not too long ago represented the Gamecocks on the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships. Kwong, additionally 23, had a profitable collegiate diving profession at TCU.

Team USA swept each the boys’s and girls’s High Diving titles, claiming gold in every. Reigning World Champion James Lichtenstein, age 31, soared to the highest of the boys’s discipline, notably receiving scores of 9’s and 10’s on his second dive of the competitors.

Lisa Faulkner, 37, who lives and trains in South Florida, topped the ladies’s excessive diving discipline. A member of the Fort Lauderdale Diving Team, Faulkner is coached by former World Champion Steven LoBue. Earlier in her profession, she loved a profitable diving tenure at University of Kentucky. 

Rounding out Team USA’s Gold Medal Performances, Jack Ryan and Quinn Henninger received the gold medal in males’s synchronized 3-meter, and Josh Hedberg received the boys’s 10-meter contest

Competing in her first senior worldwide meet, 16-year-old Evelyn Wang of Team USA certified for the Women’s 10m finals, marking a powerful debut at this stage.

Fort Lauderdale’s Summer of Diving Soars On!

Missed the American Cup occasion? Don’t fear, you’ll have extra probabilities to catch world-class diving in Fort Lauderdale this summer season, together with the World Aquatics High Diving World Cup and the World Aquatics Junior High Diving Championships, from May 15-17, in addition to the AAU National Diving Championship from July 14-24.

Flipping Back to Swimming: This Week’s Forecast is Sunny with 100% Chance of Fast Times!

The much-anticipated Speedo Fort Lauderdale Open will happen April 29 – May 2, 2026, on the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Complex, that includes an all-star lineup of swimmers, together with Katharine Berkoff, Shane Casas, Kate Douglass, Caeleb Dressel, Bobby Finke, Carson Foster, Chris Guiliano, Thomas Heilman, Luke Hobson, Katie Ledecky, Simone Manuel, Leon Marchand, Summer McIntosh, Regan Smith, Alex Walsh, and Gretchen Walsh.

Top faculty and membership groups from throughout the nation may also compete, together with the University of Florida, University of Texas, University of Virginia, Auburn University, NC State, Ohio State, and extra. 

You can purchase tickets to the Speedo Fort Lauderdale Open here.