While enthusiastic home fans at Beijing’s Water Cube were able to celebrate a clean sweep of 11 titles for home athletes in the World Aquatics Diving World Cup – Super Final, European representatives made their presence felt.
A total of seven medals – two silvers and five bronzes – were secured by divers from Great Britain, Ukraine and Germany.
Ukraine’s 19-year-old Oleksii Sereda and Moritz Wesemann of Germany each came away with two medals.
Sereda’s first was earned in the 10m platform syncho, where he and Mark Hrytsenko totalled 395.37 in an event won by Zifeng Zhu and Zilong Cheng with 460.92. Silver went to neutral athletes Nikita Shleikher and Ruslan Ternovoi on 426.69.
Immediately afterwards Sereda joined Sofia Lyskun, 18-year-old Kirill Boliukh and Kseniia Bailo to finish second in the mixed 3m and 10m team event with 423.70 as gold went to China on 507.20.
Sereda narrowly missed another bronze in the men’s 10m platform, where he was beaten to third place by Cassiel Rousseau of Australia, 499.65 to 484.05.
Wesemann’s first of two bronzes was earned in the event where Europeans offered the strongest challenge to Chinese domination – the opening event of the men’s 3m synchro.
He and Lou Noel Guy Massenberg finished on 390.78 in an event won with a score of 448.65 accrued by Yukang Hu and Jiyuan Zheng.
Wesemann’s second trip to the podium came after the men’s 3m springboard, where he totalled 430.42 behind the two Chinese divers Zongyuan Wang and Jiuyuan Zheng, who scored 519.25 and 505.05 respectively.
All three British medals came on day one. Their Paris 2024 bronze medallists Jack Laugher and Anthony Harding took silver ahead of the German pairing in the men’s 3m synchro.
In the women’s 3m synchro, Paris 2024 bronze medallists Scarlett Mew Jensen and Yasmin Harper finished third on 293.31 as China’s Olympic champions Yani Chang and Yiwen Chen won with 323.13 ahead of Australia’s Maddison Keeney and Alysha Koloi, who totalled 297.75.
And in the women’s 10m syncho the recently re-established pairing of 17-year-old Maisie Bond and Lois Toulson earned bronze with a total of 287.88. Again, gold went to Olympic champions in Yuxi Chen and Hongchan Quan, who totalled 350.88, with neutral athletes Anna Konanykhina and Aleksandra Kedrina taking silver on 302.94.
Other European athletes missed the podium by one place – Gwendal Bisch and Jules Bouyer of France in the men’s 3m synchro, Germany’s Jaden Eikermann Gregorchuk and Luis Avila Sanchez in the men’s 10m synchro, Britain’s Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix in the women’s 10m platform and Italy’s Chiara Pellacani in the women’s 3m springboard.
Mike Rowbottom for European Aquatics
