Courtesy: European Aquatics/Mike Rowbottom
Italy and Germany maintained their dominant start to the European Aquatics Diving Championships in Antalya as each added gold and silver to their collection on day three.
Germany’s Moritz Wesemann and Timo Barthel timed their challenge perfectly in the men’s 3m synchro event, moving into first place in the last of the six rounds.
Shortly afterwards Italy’s hugely experienced Lorenzo Marsaglia and Giovanni Tocci also moved past the new young British pairing of Leon Baker and Hugo Thomas who had taken the lead with a superb dive in round five and who held off all other boarders to claim bronze.
The top medals positions were reversed in the women’s 10m platform final, where Italy’s Sarah Jodoin di Maria earned her first individual European gold in a fascinating and fluctuating contest.
Germany’s Pauline Pfeif overcame a disappointing start to claim silver and The Netherlands’ Paris 2024 finalist Else Praasterink claim her first European medal in third place.
Class and experience came to bear at the end of an absorbing men’s 3m synchro event as Germany – comprising the respective 2023 3m springboard and 10m platform champions Wesemann and Barthel – finished just 2.88 points ahead of Italy’s world bronze medallists and Paris 2024 fourth-placers Marsaglia and Tocci.
But 20-year-old Baker, fifth in last year’s individual final, and 19-year-old Thomas were able to claim bronze following the impetus created by an outstanding fifth-round effort where they nailed their highest value dive, a 3.5 degree difficulty Reverse 3½ Somersaults with Tuck (307C).
A score 81.90 sent them into the final round with a lead of 7.17. The pressure was on as they were first to perform and their level dipped a little as a 66.30 from a 3.4 degree difficulty dive brought their final total to 383.25.
That offered the German and Italian pairings the chance to overtake if they could deliver on their own final efforts, each of which had a DD of 3.8.
Both did. First Wesemann and Barthel moved into gold-medal position with a score of 79.80 from their Forward 4½ Somersaults with Tuck dive (109C) that gave them a total of 389.58.
Then the Italians – who had recovered their fortunes after an indifferent start by scoring 81.60 for their 3.4 DD fourth-round effort – earned 77.52 for their concluding dive for a silver-medal winning total of 386.70.
Cue raucous celebrations from the German team and supporters as they added another gold to the silver and gold they had earned in the opening two days in, respectively, the mixed team and mixed 3m synchro. And there was more to come…
Barthel told European Aquatics: “I had a lot of pressure today because for me Moritz is one of the best divers in the world in the 3m springboard and I am now back on this competition. So it surprised me that we finally made it and we are champions today.
“Of course Germany has a very good team. Everybody is staying together and cheering. Also my mum came to Turkey to watch me diving and everything has been perfect.”
Wesemann added: “I have been competing a lot this year – in the World Cups and also in college in America. But still I was not very confident all the time with the hurdles, especially in the beginning. We hadn’t had that much training together. “
Tocci commented: “The second dive was not our perfect dive but we went through it and tried to stay focused because we knew that we had difficult dives.
Our fourth round was good. We stayed focused. We know that diving is until the end, so it’s not over until it’s over. Of course experience helps us a lot, and helped us this time so it was very good.”
Asked if he felt confident of ending the final on the podium, Britain’s Thomas said: “I think we had a pretty good performance over the whole list so I felt we were pretty confident and we knew we were up there fighting for it.
“I think even after our fifth-round score then it was still up to what everyone else did as well. We still had one more dive to go so we knew that if it was a strong and steady dive it would get us onto the podium so we just had to stay calm.”
Baker added: “I think the main takeaway for us is that we were right up there with some of the most experience divers in the world, you know, they’d been to the Olympics and world championships, so I think for us it makes us so happy to know we are right up there.”
Ukraine’s pairing of Stanislav Oliferchyk and 18-year-old Kirill Boliukh finished just off the podium with 375.72 ahead of the 358.29 score accrued by Spain’s Max Linan and Juan Pablo Cortes, who had a half share of silver at this event last year.
Poland’s Kacper Lesiak, who earned 3m synchro bronze last year, finished sixth this time round in company with the 2024 1m springboard champion Andrzej Rzeszutek.
Having finished second in the morning’s preliminary women’s 10m platform competition, Montreal-born Jodoin di Maria – who is of Italian descent through her father and who gained Italian citizenship in 2018 – went one better in the afternoon.
Following scores of 75.20 – the second best in the final – and 66.00 she survived a third-round wobble after leading and restored her lead in rounds four and five with totals of 67.20 and 65.25 to win with a total of 324.85.
Pfeif, who also took silver on the opening day as part of Germany’s mixed team, came through strongly to finish second on 319.45 and was left to rue the mark of 37.50 she earned for her first dive.
Bronze went to Praasterink, who had won the preliminary by almost 30 points with a total of 322.10.
At last year’s European Aquatics Championships in Belgrade the 22-year-old US-based Dutch athlete – currently studying for a Masters degree at Texas A&M University in rangeland, wildlife and fisheries management – also won the preliminary competition but finished ninth.
This time round she maintained her form to reach the podium.
Di Maria, who won European team gold in 2022, commented: “I was confident in my diving coming into these Championships but having said this each competition is different and I think I was very stressed – but it kind of helped this time.
“Sometimes the stress kind of gets to me and I don’t dive as well but today, other than my third dive, I am very happy with how I competed and very happy that got first place.
“To be European champion – I am very happy!
“The first two dives I did were very good. On the third dive I kind of missed a little but then I think that was the challenging part, to kind of close the box on it. So it didn’t affect my final two dives.
“We are all very happy, The whole Italian team was ready for this competition. I still have mixed 10m synchro so I am very happy and I can’t wait to do it.
“I want to thank all my coaches and my family that supports it.”
Pfeif said: “I’m very, very happy with my silver because it was a tough one for me.
“My first dive wasn’t as planned, as I had wanted it to be. But you have to go from dive to dive and stay positive, so I did that, and my coach pushed me as well.”
Speaking about earning her first European medal, Praasterink said: “Yes, it was nerve-wracking. I knew how strong my competitors were.”
Reflecting on her contrasting experience at last year’s European Aquatics Championships in Belgrade, she added: “I got the opportunity to do it again this year, so I am very excited about it. I just wanted to do as well as I could this time round and I think I was able to do that.”
The most valuable dive of the final , worth 75.40, was produced by Spain’s Valeria Antolina in round three, helping her to finish fourth in 298.10 ahead of Ukraine’s 2024 joint silver medallist Sofiia Lyskun, who totalled 281.10.
For Spain’s 18-year-old defending champion Ana Carvajal it proved to be a difficult day. She dropped out of the medal placings following a fourth-round score of 45.00, and eventually finished seventh on 271.55 after scoring 31.35 on her final dive, a 3.3 degree difficulty Back 3½ Somersaults with Tuck (207C), which had also seen her drop to fourth place in the preliminary when she only managed to salvage 14.85 points from it.
