By Anna Laible and Maya Waid, WRAL Sports contributors

Andrew Capobianco finished 15th overall in the 3m springboard on Wednesday, ending his Olympic run.

The Holly Springs native scored 66.30 on each of his first two dives, Capobianco posted a 71.75 on a reverse 3 ½ somersaults dive to put himself in 12th place at the midway point of the semifinal competition.

After a subpar fourth dive, Capobianco dropped to 18th but bounced back with a huge 81.90 on his forward 2½ somersaults 3 twists. He finished off his semifinal performance with his best dive of the morning, scoring a 83.60 on a forward 4½ somersault.

Although he missed out on the finals – one USA diver, Carson Tyler, will compete for a medal – Capobianco finished with a smile.

“I’m proud of the lead up to it,” Capobianco said after the semifinal.

“I haven’t had the most perfect three years since the last one with some injuries and surgeries in there so I’m just proud of the way that I kind of fought through that and tried to always keep my head high and go out there with confidence. Sometimes you just have to fake it and unfortunately, the faking didn’t really work for me today,” he said. “I just didn’t really feel my most confident out there.”

In his Olympic debut in 2020, Capobianco finished 10th overall in the 3m competition and took home a silver medal in the synchronized springboard.

This year at the Olympic trials, he won the 3m springboard.

While at Holly Springs High School, Capobianco was a member of Team USA 2014 and 2016 FINA Junior World Championships teams in addition to being a five-time senior national champion.

During his five year-career at Indiana University, Capobianco was a two-time NCAA 3-meter diving champion, a four-time NCAA medalist and a ten-time All-American.

After prepping for so long, Capobianco has had to battle injuries since his podium finish in Tokyo.

Tyler, who goes on to represent Team USA in the 3-meter springboard finals on Thursday, was a college teammate.

“It’s great being able to train together so hard and coming here and just being able to have that,” Capobianco said. “[Tyler’s] like a brother to me, so being able to compete with him is fun, but it’s not a team sport where we’re with each other the whole time.”

Due to the COVID restrictions of the 2020 games, this is the first chance Capobianco’s family had gotten to see their son compete in-person at the Olympics. He was joined in Paris by his parents, twin brother Matt and older brother, Christian.

“It’s great to have them here,” Capobianco said. “I wish I could have had a better result with them here. Obviously the last one, I won a medal and nobody was really there to see it so that makes it a little bit more bittersweet this time. I wish I had a similar result and we were able to celebrate, but we’re still going to celebrate. I’m still a two-time Olympian, but it’s just a little bit different.”

Although he won’t be advancing any further, his family is proud of not only his Olympic run, but how he has represented their family and North Carolina on the world stage.

“To be an Olympian is not only being able to perform at a really high level athletically, but to generally just be a really great person and represent the country really well,” brother Christian Capobianco said. “It’s pretty incredible that he’s been chosen not only to fulfill his role athletically here, but also to be kind of a role model for everyone in Paris and back home as well. I feel like he really does a great job at that, and we couldn’t be more proud of him.”

Source: wralsportsfan.com