Italy’s Chiara Pellacani laid claim to being the diver of the European Aquatics Championships Paris 2026 as she earned her fourth gold medal with a peerless sequence of performances in the women’s 3m springboard, adding to the titles she had already won in the mixed team, 1m and 3m synchro with Matteo Santoro.
Pellacani was simply different class as she totalled 358.05 with a similar margin of victory as she had earned in her 1m final – almost 40 points – with silver going to Great Britain’s Yasmin Harper and NAB’s Nadezhda Trifonova taking bronze.
Earlier on day five in the men’s 10m synchro Ukraine’s defending champions Oleksii Sereda and Mark Hrytsenko had to settle for bronze after a pulverising display by the NAB’s world silver medallists Nikita Shleikher and Ruslan Ternovoi, who earned one monster score of 96.12, with Italy’s Simone Conte and Raffaele Pelligra taking silver.
“I don’t even know how to describe it, I just feel like I was so ready for this moment, the preparation, the training, it was all really great,” Pellacani told European Aquatics. “I felt very confident and I think that was the key. It was my goal and it feels amazing to actually do it, because you dream about it and now it’s just so magical. I feel like I was focusing day-by-day, competition by competition, dive by dive and I wasn’t thinking about everything and just winning, but that helped me keep the pressure off. I just wanted to really enjoy the moment
“Honestly it’s crazy, i wasn’t expecting all these people, so many Italians, so much support and i’m so grateful for this as it just makes everything more emotional and more exciting. I’m just so grateful to everyone who came here, including my family, who were here today and I’m so proud.
“We have a lot of young people on the team for the first time and they’re all performing so well and I’m so proud of them. This is a great sport and it deserves more attention.”
Trifonova, who won gold and two silvers at the European juniors, commented: “I’ve had a long season including the European Junior Championships, and now the senior Championships. This medal means a lot because it is start of a serious career for me. Now I am confident that I belong with the elite.”
Pellacani had dominated the morning’s preliminaries and she started the final in similar mode with opening scores of 67.50 and 72.00 which sent her into the third round with a total of 139.50 and a winning margin over NAB’s Nadezhda Trifonova of 9.00.
The NAB athlete had finished second in the preliminaries, followed by Switzerland’s 2025 gold medallist Michelle Heimberg – but after scoring 45.00 in round one the defending champion’s challenge was over as it was announced she had had to withdraw from the competition.
Pellacani upped the ante in round three, earning 79.05 from a Forward 3½ Somersaults Pike (107B) dive with 3.1 degree difficulty to reach 218.55.
But now her winning margin – 25.05 – was over Great Britain’s Paris 2024 and 2025 world 3m synchro bronze medallist Yasmin Harper, who had been consistently in the 60-plus range and whose third round of 69.00 moved her up to second place on 193.50.
Trifonova dropped to third after scoring 58.50.
It was Harper, third in the order, whose turn it was to falter in round four as she scored 57.00 and awaited the consequences.She remained top until the final two dives of the round from Trifonova and then Pellacani.
The NAB athlete scored 64.50 to move past her with a total of 253.50 and Pellacani, requiring only more than 34.95 to regain the heights, did a little more than that with a score of 72.00 that moved her total to 290.55 – and a margin of 37.05.
Harper finished strong, recovering her fortunes with a concluding 68.20 that put her once again into the leading-but-awaiting game with a final total of 318.70. She ended with silver in the venue where she had won Paris 2024 bronze in the 3m synchro with Scarlett Mew Jensen.
This time however Trifonova, needing to surpass 65.20 to pass her, failed to do so as she scored a concluding 58.90 that would shortly earn her bronze on 312.40 as Pellacani concluded her demonstration of the diving art with a final score of 67.50 that took her golden total to 358.05 – with a winning margin of 39.35.
Very soon the delirious chant of “Chiara, Chiara, Chiara” rang out once again in the Olympic Aquatic Centre.
The NAB pairing produced a performance of similar mastery to earn their first international title in the men’s 10m synchro.
“It’s the first gold medal for us as a pair, the first time winning,” Shleikher told European Aquatics. “Not everything was perfect and we have lots to improve but that gives us the motivation to try for more golds in future events.
Asked whether their silver-medal success at Singapore last year had brought more pressure or confidence, Ternovoi responded:
“Previous events don’t matter, whether it was good or bad, when you go in to a new competition.
“But we had to be confident heading in to a European Championships, in order for ourselves to achieve the best result,”
Regarding their target for the future, Shleikher added:
“We feel there are a few spaces to improve and first of all the goal is an Olympic medal and for that you can’t be an eight out of 10, you must be brilliant.”
Shleikher – who had earned 3m synchro silver with Evgenii Kuznetsov the day before – and Ternovoi started as they meant to go on in round one as they established a lead on 52.80 from Great Britain on 51.60 and Germany on 50.40.
In the second round the defending champions needed to upgrade after placing fifth but they had to settle for 45.00 and they slipped further off the lead as the NAB pairing, diving immediately after them, recorded 50.40.
That mark was exactly matched by the British pairing of Euan McCabe and Ben Cutmore – who already had a gold and two bronzes in this event, the last of them with McCabe. So the margin remained at 1.20 going into round three.
But the picture then changed as the defending champions found their mojo and registered 80.64 for their Inward 3½ Somersault Tuck (407C) dive with degree difficulty 3.2.
The NAB responded with a 70.38 score which left them 0.06 adrift, but Italy did more as Simon Conte and Raffaele Pellligra scored 75.84 to move into joint lead with the Ukrainians.
A score of 75.48 then saw Cutmore and McCabe take over at the top on 177.48 after Germany had completed the fourth round with a score of 77.52 which took them to second place on 176.52.
Sereda and Hrytsenko remained at a high level, scoring 78.81 for their fourth dive to total 252.45.
But then came the dive which effectively won gold as the NAB earned a staggering 96.12 points for their Back 3½ Somersaults Pike (207B) dive with degree difficulty 3.6, giving them a total of 269.70 and moving them from fifth to first heading into round five.
Former Olympic diver and current coach Michele Benedetti, here to provide expert commentary for EA, said: “If I would have to ask one of my divers for a perfect dive, or for perfection in that particular dive in syncho, I would ask for exactly what the neutral athletes have done.
A perfect combination of strength, choreography, elegance and technique. Everything they did in that dive was perfect. No less than a nine and a half or a 10 in my opinion, which would have meant a score of more than 100 points.”
The excellence was spreading as Italy had moved up to second with a score of 80.19 from their Back 3½ Somersaults Tuck (207C) dive with 3.3 degree difficulty to reach 253.83.
Ukraine kept their focus in round five, garnering 69.36 to reach 321.81, but once again their score was eclipsed by the following NAB pairing who registered another pulverising score of 88.80 for their Forward 4½ Somersaults Tuck (109C) dive with 3.7 degree difficulty, restoring them in the lead on 358.50.
The Italians were also on fire, following up with 81.60 for their Inward 3½ Somersaults Tuck (407C) dive with 3.2 degree difficulty to move into silver position on 335.43.
Could Cutmore and McCabe get back into the medal positions? Not quite, as they scored 72.15 to reach a total of 320.91 which kept them in fourth place by less than a point.
The NAB thus carried a lead of 23.07 over Italy as they moved into the last round, with Ukraine at 36.69 and GB at 37.59.
The champions finished as champions should, with a defiant flourish, scoring 84.24 for their Back 2½ Somersaults 2½ Twists Pike (5255B) dive with 3.6 degree difficulty to earn a final total of 406.05.
Once again, however, the NAB trumped them with an effort of 85.32 to reach a total of 443.82.
There was huge noise for Italy once more as Conte and Pelligra concluded with a dive worth 81.03 to resume and own the silver-medal position.
Britain were the only pairing with a faint chance of dislodging the Ukrainians from bronze-medal position, but their last effort of 76.68 just fell short and they finished fourth on 397.59.
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Mike Rowbottom for European Aquatics
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