At last year’s European Aquatics Diving Championships in Antalya Oleksii Sereda earned victory in the 10m platform, mixed team and 10m synchro in partnership with the then 15-year-old Mark Hrytsenko.
Sereda, who at 13 became the youngest European diving champion when he won the 10m title at the 2019 home Championships in Kyiv, now has 11 European medals – eight of them gold. And he will be expecting more in Paris.
Since winning his third European 10m platform title Sereda – still only 20 – has earned world silver and a fourth continental gold in this event looks very likely.
He will face the respective 2025 silver and bronze medallists, Ole Rosler of Germany and Austria’s Anton Knoll.
But he will also have to take on new European rivals this time in the form of Great Britain’s Paris 2024 bronze medallist Noah Williams and Neutral Athlete B Ruslan Ternovoi, European 10m platform bronze medallist in 2019.
Ternovoi won world silver last year in the 10m synchro with Nikita Shleikher and they will form a strong challenge to the Ukrainian pairing.
Germany’s Moritz Wesemann won 1m springboard gold and 3m bronze in Antalya, He goes again in both and will also defend the 3m synchro title he won with Timo Barthel.
Luis Avila Sanchez partnered Lena Hentschel to deprive Italy’s soon-to-be world champions Chiara Pellacani and Matteo Santoro of the mixed 3m synchro title by just 0.02 of a point. Sanchez and Hentschel will defend their title.
While Santoro will team up Pellacani again he has targets in individual competition where he is entered in the 1m and 3m springboard.
His colleague Lorenzo Marsaglia will also challenge strongly in the 1m, where he won silver last year, as well as competing in the 3m synchro alongside Giovanni Tocci, with whom he finished second in Antalya.
Poland’s Andrzej Rzeszutek will defend the 3m title he won on the final day of last year’s Championships.
Meanwhile Ukraine’s Danylo Konovalov will seek to match or better his 1m bronze from last year.
While Pellacani and Santoro look favourites for the mixed 3m synchro, Great Britain look capable of dominating the other synchro events given the concentration of talent they are fielding.
On the men’s side they have Anthony Harding and Jack Laugher, who won Olympic and then world bronze in the 3m synchro.
The hosts, back in the running for European honours, will look to the man who won European 3m springboard gold at the 2024 Championships in Belgrade, Gwendal Bisch, to achieve further success.
They will also be hoping for a medal from the 2024 3m synchro champions Jules Bouyer and Alexis Jandard, who will be seeking to regain their title.
Diving at the European Aquatics Championships Paris 2026 will take place from July 31 to August 6.
Click here for the event page, which includes all start lists and results.
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Mike Rowbottom for European Aquatics
