Michelle Heimberg produced a Swiss precision performance on day six of the European Aquatics Diving Championships as she won women’s 3m springboard gold in fine style having dominated the morning’s preliminary competition.
History was made for Armenia as 23-year-old Aleksandra Bibikina won silver seven years after the country’s only other medal success at these Championships – a bronze earned by Vladimir Harutyunyan and Lev Sargsyan in the men’s 10m platform synchro at the 2018 edition held in Edinburgh.
And Germany’s Lena Hentschel added a first individual medal to the three others already secured here as she finished strongly to take bronze.
Earlier at the outdoor Gloria Sports Arena pool Oleksii Sereda and his 15-year-old partner Mark Hrytsenko provided Ukraine with its fifth gold of these Championships in the men’s 10m platform synchro.
Consistent high scoring in the three telling final rounds of the men’s 10m synchro saw the new Ukraine pairing – who earned bronze at this month’s World Cup Super Final in Beijing – move clear of the bold German challenge supplied by Espen Prenzyna and 17-year-old Ole Rosler.
Bronze went to Italy’s new pairing of Riccardo Giovannini and 17-year-old Simone Conte after a dramatic finale in which Great Britain’s challenge unravelled with final dive that went spectacularly amiss.
Heimberg, 24, had won women’s 1m bronze four days earlier having won the preliminary competition. This time round she translated another preliminary competition win into victory.
Two years after earning 3m bronze and 1m gold in the Championship held within the European Games she now has a mirror image of those successes, adding to the three other European medals earned earlier – 3m silver in 2017 and 2022, and 1m silver in 2020.
After two rounds, Hentschel – who had earlier won mixed team silver, mixed 3m synchro gold and women’s 3m synchro silver – led by 4.50 points from Italy’s 1m springboard gold medallist Chiara Pellacani, with Heimberg in third place.
But a score of 42.00 on her third dive dropped the 23-year-old journalism student from Dresden down to fourth place as Pellacani took up the running. The Italian had the chance to compound her position but a relatively moderate score of 54.00 meant Heimberg, diving last as the prelims winner, was able to move into the lead for the first time with a total of 67.50.
The gap was only 8.85 points at the top. But after Bibikina had finished strongly with her second successive score of 72.00, Pellacani went down rather than up after her final effort, scoring 42.00. The look on her face told its own story.
There was one more dive to be made – by Heimberg. A more-than-solid 67.50 for her Forward 2½ Somersaults 1 Twist with Pike (5152B), with a degree difficulty of 3.0, took her total to 335.10 and left her 12.15 clear of Bibikina.
“I’m really proud of myself. At the moment I’m still a bit overwhelmed with the emotions as well because I won the prelims and now I was able to do the same in the final and take home the gold medal.
“So I’m really proud of myself for not stressing in a competition and taking it home.
“Now I have a full set of medals on 1m and 3m and it feels amazing because diving in Switzerland is not so big so to achieve something like this is amazing for my country and myself and I’m just really proud of how I did the competition today.
“After I missed qualification for the Paris Olympics it was kind of a hard time and I just needed a break from diving, from sports. So I took six months off, I wasn’t in a pool the whole time, I never touched a springboard.
“And I did come back last summer and had so much fun again. I was diving for myself and no one else, and now I am enjoying it more than ever before.”
Bibikina commented: “I am very happy to win a silver medal for Armenia.”
Hentschel, meanwhile, had battled on from her third round lapse and successive scores of 63.00 and 68.20 restored her to the podium as Pellicani finished fourth on 300.75.
“It was definitely an emotional competition,” Hentschel said. “I started really, really strong and then I had my inward dive which didn’t go that well. But I kept fighting and in the end I was able to stand on the podium and receive my bronze medal.
“This is my first individual medal, and I think this is the goal for everyone, to stand on the podium for themselves. I mean it’s always special to stand on the podium with someone else, but to receive a medal yourself for your own performance is always really special.”
Behind Pellacani were the Ukrainian teenagers who had earned 3m synchro gold two days earlier – 16-year-old Kseniia Bochek and 18-year-old Diana Karnafel.
The morning’s preliminary competition had proved attritional for some highly accomplished divers including Britain’s 20-year-old defending champion Desharne Bent-Ashmeil, who struggled to find her normal level and was bumped out of the 12th and final qualifying position by the second-last dive of the competition, with which Poland’s Aleksandra Blazowska secured 10th place.
Also missing the cut was the Dutch diver who had earned her first European medal – bronze – in the women’s 10m platform four days earlier, Else Praasterink, and Sweden’s 1m springboard silver medallist and 2024 gold medallist Elna Widerstrom.
Ahead in the men’s 10m platform synchro by just 0.72 by the sixth and final round, the Ukrainian pair of Sereda and Hrytsenko watched Germany produce a final effort worth 77.76 that took them over the 400 points mark.
Sereda, a seasoned veteran of international diving at the age of 19, and his young colleague needed to surpass 77.04 to secure their country’s fifth gold at these Championships.
A score of 88.56 on their Back 2½ Somersaults 2½ Twists with Pike (5255B) did the job handsomely as they reached a final total of 413.76, with Germany claiming silver – Rosler’s third of these Championships – on 402.24.
“I did everything that I wanted,” Sereda, who now has three golds at these Championships and eight in all since winning his first European title in 2019 aged 13, told European Aquatics. “I said I would take golds here and I have taken all the golds I could. So I am really happy with that result. We showed progress in our synchro, together with Mark we showed our record together.
“We were in really close competition with the German athletes, but we had more degree difficulty on our last dive and our last dive. We were sure we could do it great. Because although this dive has a difficult degree we are doing it regularly, normally.
“So we were confident and we did what we wanted.”
Hrytsenko, who made his debut at these Championships in Belgrade last year, added: “I’m very excited. This is my first European medal and it is a gold.”
Rosler, who had already picked up silver medals in the mixed team and men’s 10m events, commented: I’m honestly pretty happy with the overall results here. I’ve got three silver medals at my first European Championship and I think that’s really good.
“I’m really happy about our consistency today- we didn’t really miss any dives.”
Prenzyna, 20, added: “It was a great performance from us today and I am very happy to win my first European medal.”
Bronze went to the Italian pair of 17-year-old Simon Conte and Riccardo Giovannini, who dropped from joint leaders to sixth after a second-round misfire earned them just 39.60 and then climbed all the way back up to the podium.
A score of 72.90 saw them enter the final round in fourth position, just over 14 points behind Great Britain’s 27-year-old Kyle Kothari, sixth in the 10m platform at last year’s World Championships in Doha, and 20-year-old Robbie Lee, last year’s European 10m platform champion, who had responded with a penultimate effort of 73.26.
Again the Italians rose to the challenge, scoring 74.88 with their concluding dive, an Inward 3½ Somersaults with Tuck (407C), to give them a final total of 378.45 and put the pressure back on the British pair.
Everything unravelled on the Britons’ final effort, a Back 2½ Somersaults 2½ Twists with Pike (5255B) which was a failed dive.
Kothari, clearly dazed after appearing to lose his bearings in mid-air, generated some concerns after an awkward landing and he took a while to clamber from the water but was thankfully able to walk away , receiving a handshake from his partner.
“We are a little bit sad for Team GB for their failed dive, but this is sport,” said Giovannini. “Sometimes you win, sometimes no. So this time we take this medal and we are very happy for our performance.
“We started the competition very strong but we had a little difference in the second dive. But we stayed calm and maintained our focus and dive after dive we came up the rankings.
“We are happy with this medal because before this competition we didn’t have a lot of competition together because we are a new couple in diving. So it is an unexpected medal for us.”
Austria’s defending champions Anton Knoll – the individual bronze medallist here – and Dariush Lotfi – fought tenaciously and consistently to hold onto their title but eventually finished one place off the podium on 374.67.
Mike Rowbottom for European Aquatics
