Bacon Wins Minnesota's First Ever Honda Sport Award - GopherSports.com

Swimming & Diving | 4/19/2021 10:22:00 AM

MINNEAPOLIS - Redshirt-senior and four-time NCAA Champion Sarah Bacon will have yet another award to add to her already impeccable collegiate resume after being named the Honda Sport Winner for swimming and diving, as announced by the Collegiate Women's Sports Awards (CWSA) Monday morning.

The Honda Sport Award has been presented annually by the CWSA for the past 45 years to the top women athletes in 12 NCAA-sanctioned sports and signifies "the best of the best in collegiate athletics". With this honor, Bacon becomes a finalist for the Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year and the prestigious Class of 2021 Honda Cup, which will be presented on a telecast on CBS Sports Network on Monday, June 28 at 8 p.m. CT.

"I really appreciate being nominated for this award," said Bacon. "To say I am honored to have received this amongst the other three amazing female swimmers is such an understatement! I am grateful for this and want to say a huge thank you and shout out to everyone who has helped me along the way in my collegiate career, especially Wenbo Chen."

Among Bacon as the 2021 finalists for the swimming and diving category were Michigan's Maggie MacNeil, Virginia's Paige Madden and NC State's Sophie Hansson.

With Friday's announcement, Bacon became the first ever student-athlete in Minnesota school history to win the award for any sport, after being only the second ever member of the swimming and diving program to be named a finalist. The lone other Gopher to receive a finalist spot in the swimming and diving category was NCAA Champion and Olympian Jillian Tyler in 2011. Possibly even more impressively, Bacon is also the only diver in the history of the Honda Sports Award to receive the honor.

A large contributor to Bacon receiving the first ever Honda Sport award in Minnesota history was her performance at this year's 2021 NCAA Championships, where the Indianapolis, Ind. native set history on multiple levels. The first of which came when she claimed gold on the one-meter springboard, effectively winning her third straight title in the event and becoming only the third Minnesota student-athlete in history to accomplish a three-peat at the national level.

Securing her second title of the championships a day later on the three-meter springboard, Bacon became only the second member in the history of the Minnesota Swimming & Diving program to win multiple events in one year's NCAA Championships. Most impressively, Bacon's pair of titles brings her NCAA Championship title count up to four over her tremendous career, making her the winningest woman in any sport in Minnesota history.

"I think it's great for her because she's put in a lot of time and worked very hard at being the best that she can be," said head diving coach Wenbo Chen. "This is a special year for her, not just because of the pandemic, but because of all she's gone through with taking an Olympic year last year that was postponed to this year. She's been training so hard for that, so she absolutely deserves this award. She's put a lot into this sport."

Apart from this prestigious honor, Bacon had also been previously named both the Collegiate Swimming & Diving Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) and Big Ten Conference Diver of the Year for her performance on the national stage.

Internationally, Bacon has proven a force as well, claiming three individual top-three finishes from 2019-21, including a gold-medal finish on the one-meter at the 2019 Pan American Games. On the synchronized end of the well, Bacon added another pair of gold-medal finishes on the three-meter board at both the 2020 FINA Grand Prix events in Madrid, ESP and Rostock, GER.

With Bacon's collegiate career now wrapped up, the former Minnesota diving captain has her eyes set on representing the United States at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics later this summer. She will graduate from the University of Minnesota this spring with a degree in Kinesiology.

About Honda

For more than 60 years in the U.S., Honda has been committed to making positive contributions to the communities where its associates live and work. Honda's mission is to create products and services that improve the lives of people while conducting its business in a sustainable manner and fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace. Accordingly, Honda believes in helping people reach their life's potential through its focus on improving children's health, inspiring underrepresented students, preserving the environment for future generations, creating safety for everyone, and strengthening our communities.

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