Synchronized Swimming at the 1988 Seoul Summer Games:

After winning this event in 1984, Tracie Ruiz had retired from the sport, taken up bodybuilding, and married former Penn State football player Mike Conforto. She returned to synchronized swimming in 1986 and won the Pan-American Games in 1987, defending her 1983 gold medal. Ruiz-Conforto did not compete at the 1986 World Championships, won in her absence by Carolyn Waldo, who had won the 1984 Olympic silver behind Ruiz-Conforto, and in 1986 won the triple at the Worlds – winning solo, duet and group gold medals. Waldo had not competed against Ruiz-Conforto at the 1987 Pan-Ams. They met for the first time since the 1984 Olympics at a pre-Olympic meet in Seoul in June, and Ruiz-Conforto won. But in Seoul, Waldo built up an insurmountable lead in the preliminary round, which carried over to the final, and Ruiz-Conforto could not overcome this in the final, as Waldo won the gold medal.