Singapore 2025: Gimeno and Popovici lead way for Europe on day two of diving programme
Day two of diving at the World Aquatics Championships Singapore 2025 saw the men’s 27m high diving final produce a dramatic and emotional evening at Sentosa Island, with Spain’s Carlos Gimeno and Romania’s Constantin Popovici securing respective silver and bronze medals in a final that demonstrated Europe’s growing strength in a six-round contest which saw the medal positions change hands with every passing trip to the platform.
Gimeno, just 23 years old, captured the attention of the crowd from the start. After a strong showing across the preliminary rounds, he moved into serious contention with a superb fifth dive that scored an enormous 143.10 points. That left him leading the standings heading into the final round, nearly 25 points clear of USA’s James Lichtenstein. With the world title in reach, the Spaniard opted for a slightly more difficult dive to close, but a slight over-rotation proved costly. He finished just 3.60 points behind Lichtenstein, who took gold with a final tally of 428.90. While the narrow margin denied Gimeno the world title, his silver medal was the athlete’s first medal at a World Aquatics Championships, as he continues to build his portfolio with an impressive closing tally of 425.30.
Veteran high diver Popovici returned to the World Championship podium following a hiatus at last year’s edition in Doha, with the 2023 world champion recovering well from a drop on his penultimate dive to surge back into the bronze medal position. His huge score of 141.00 on his final dive was the latest in a series of strong performances on the world stage for the Romanian, as he finished on 408.70.
In what was a tight three-way battle for that bronze medal, Popovici’s compatriot Catalin Preda was the one to miss out, despite producing the highest-scoring dive of the entire competition in the final round. His 6.1-difficulty dive earned him 149.45 points and sent him surging up the leaderboard to fifth place – just outside of the medals.
In the diving pool, neutral athletes Aleksandr Bondar and Anna Konanykhina took bronze in the mixed 10m synchronised final, with their forward 3 ½ somersaults pike (107B) being the pick of their efforts. In the third round, it scored 76.50 on their way to a total score of 311.88, as they finished squarely on the third step of the podium.
Elsewhere, Great Britain’s Jordan Houlden led the charge in the men’s 1m springboard final. Despite being in and around the podium places for much of the event, he couldn’t find a way through and had to settle for fourth place as the highest European finisher in the event.
Stephen Stanley for European Aquatics
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