Aleksandr Bondar won a pair of golds on the 10-meter platform events to push Russia to the medal table victory in diving at the 2018 European Championships.
Bondar, a silver medalist at Worlds last summer in the 10-meter synchro, broke through to win both the individual 10-meter platform and the 10-meter synchro event. His 2017 silver medal partner Victor Minibaev joined him in the synchro event, rolling through the field by 24 points with the 2017 World Champion Chinese not at the European meet.
Russia narrowly edged Great Britain in both gold medals (5-to-4) and total medals (12-to-10). Much of that damage came on the platforms, where Bondar won his two and Nikita Shleikher and Yulia Timoshinina won the mixed 10-meter synchro event. Shleiker was also the silver medalist behind Bondar in the individual 10-meter platform.
Other Russian winners were Evgeny Kuznetsov and Ilia Zakharov in the 3-meter springboard synchro (Zakharov was also the silver medalist on 3-meter springboard individually) and Maria Poliakova in the 1-meter springboard competition for the women.
Great Britain won four golds, two in each gender. Jack Laugher swept the individual springboards for the men, winning by 13 on 1-meter and just 6 on 3-meter. Meanwhile Grace Reid won 3-meter on the women’s side and Eden Cheng and Lois Toulson combined to win the 10-meter platform synchro on the women’s side.
Other gold medalists:
- Italy’s Elena Bertocchi and Chiara Pellacani won the 3-meter synchro springboard for women.
- Celine van Duijn of the Netherlands picked up the 10-meter platform gold.
- Germany’s Tina Punzel and Lou Massenberg won the mixed 3-meter synchro springboard.
- Ukrainian duo Oleh Kolodiy/Sofiya Lyskun won the team event, which features a team of two divers completing a full six-dive list by taking three dives each.
You can find full event results here.
Final Medal Table – Diving
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Russia |
5 | 4 | 3 | 12 |
| 2 |  Great Britain |
4 | 5 | 1 | 10 |
| 3 |  Germany |
1 | 2 | 5 | 8 |
| 4 |  Italy |
1 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
| 5 |  Ukraine |
1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 6 |  Netherlands |
1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 7 |  Armenia |
0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 7 |  France |
0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Total | 13 | 13 | 13 | 45 | |
