Germany secured its first gold medal of the European Aquatics Junior Diving Championships in Hungary as 16-year-old Finn Awe produced a grandstand finish to win the Boys A 1m springboard title.
The day three action in Budapest’s iconic Duna Arena concluded with Russia earning a fourth gold of the Championships thanks to Aleksandra Kedrina, defending champion in the Girls’ platform, who effectively retained her title from Athens last year with a stupendous penultimate score of 90.75.
Awe, who won world junior gold in the Boys’ 1m and 3m springboard events in 2024, produced a score of 72.00 for his fourth-round effort, a Reverse 2-1/2 Somersaults (305C), to take over the lead from Russia’s Matvei Pomoshnikov, whose level dipped on his own penultimate effort, for which he scored 52.00.
The young German, who will turn 17 on Monday (June 29), consolidated his position with a final score of 65.60 for his Forward 2-1/2 Somersaults with 1 Twist (5152B).
Awe thus followed through on his performance in the morning’s preliminaries, which he topped with 482.90.
Pomoshnikov, who had finished fourth in the preliminaries, had established a third-round lead with successive scores of 69.75, 64.00 and 63.00.
After his less successful fourth dive, a final effort yielding 57.00 secured him silver on 495.30 ahead of Ukraine’s Dmytro Stepanov, who totalled 479.50.
Ivan Sautin – whose father Dmitry won two Olympic golds, five world golds and 12 European golds between 1993 and 2008 – moved up from ninth position after two rounds to finish fourth on 472.45 thanks to a final effort earning 65.10.
Fifth place went to Britain’s Oscar Kane on 463.25, with Erik Passerone of Switzerland sixth on 455.60 and Italy’s Emmanuel Vitoma Di Trani seventh on 452.65.
“I am very proud of my coach and my team – they support me very much,” Awe told European Aquatics. “It’s helped me to get better in the competition and feel the vibe. That was important to me.
“Winning was a surprise to me – I didn’t know I was going to get first place. So I’m very haopy with it.”
Pomoshnikov added: “At the beginning of the competition I started very well, but unfortunately the last two dives – especially the last one.”
Kedrina, 16, had won the morning’s preliminaries with 454.15, and she maintained good momentum in the final, holding second place behind team-mate Viktoriia Kazantseva after the first two of her four dives.
But she turned the competition on its head with her third dive, a Back 3-1/2 Somersaults (207C) which secured her 90.75.
A solid final effort of 70.40 from a Back 2-1/2 Somersaults 1-1/2 Twists (5253B) secured her successful defence with a total of 477.20.
Kazantseva earned silver on 406.25, with bronze going to Ukraine’s Sofiia Vystavkina on 388.60.
Vystavkina’s team-mate Diana Shevchenko finished fourth on 386.25, with Germany’s Charlotte Lederer fifth on 372.65 and Great Britain’s Juliette John sixth on 358.45.
“I could call today’s competition perfect,” Kedrina said. “I was very proud that everything went well and I had good dives – especially the third one. I had trained for a long, long time for that dive.
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Mike Rowbottom for European Aquatics
