Michael Hixon

Michael Hixon (left) and Sam Dorman at the 2016 Olympics

Hixon began diving at the national level when he was 12 and has won the 1-meter competition at the national championships three years running.[9] Hixon is a six-time junior U.S. champion,[11] and won two bronze medals, in the 1 meter and 3 meter events, at the 2009 Junior Pan-American Diving Championships in Calgary.[9]

He subsequently paired with Kristian Ipsen to win a silver at the 2010 FINA World Junior Diving Championships in Tucson, Arizona in the 3 meter synchronized springboard event,[12] but only managed a tenth-place finish in the 3 meter solo event.[13]

Hixon won in the 3 meter springboard event at a national selection camp and qualified for Youth Olympic trials in Guadalajara, Mexico, where he won a bronze medal and thus secured a spot to represent the United States at the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics in the 3 meter springboard event.[14]

The event in the first-ever Youth Olympics in Singapore consisted of a 15-man preliminary round and an eight-man final round. After the ten-dive preliminary round, Hixon carried over enough points into the final to begin the final round in third.[15] Although he was sixth after his first dive in the final[16] and fourth heading into his final dive, a poor dive by Italy's Giovanni Tocci allowed Hixon to claim bronze on his final dive,[15] finishing with a score of 554.65 points behind Qiu Bo of China and Oleksandr Bondar of Ukraine.[6][17]

At the 2011 US National Championships, Hixon captured the senior men 1-meter springboard title at the UCLA's Spieker Aquatics Center in Los Angeles.[18] He also won silver in the 3m synchro with Darian Schmidt at the 2013 AT&T National Diving Championships,[10] and won the 1-meter springboard at the 2016 USA Diving Winter National Championship.[8]

Hixon also won NCAA SWimming and Diving Championships titles on both the 1-meter and 3-meter springboard events in 2014.[10]

Hixon qualified for his first senior international competition, the 2013 World Aquatics Championships in Barcelona, with Troy Dumais, and finished fifth in the men's 3-meter synchronized event.[19]

In the 2015 World Aquatics Championships in Kazan, Russia, Hixon won bronze in the men's 1-meter dive.[20]

Hixon qualified for and represented the United States in both the 3 metre synchronized and men's individual 3 metre springboard events at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio.[21][22] He teamed up with Sam Dorman on the 3 metre synchro only after team changes in March 2016,[23] but won the U.S. trials in their first competition together in June 2016.[24]

In the men's 3 meter springboard synchro event, Hixon along with his diving partner Sam Dorman was placed second and won the silver medal with a score of 450.21, behind Jack Laugher and Chris Mears of Great Britain (454.32) but in front of the Chinese pair Qin Kai and Cao Yuan (443.70).[25]

In the men's individual 3 metre springboard, he finished 10th, while his former 3 metre synchro partner Kristian Ipsen placed fifth in the same event.[26]