On Sunday morning, the first World Aquatics event ever to be held in Bahrain came to a very tense finish.

In the first high diving World Cup of the year, the top-three men finished within 4.2 points of each other. 

Constantin Popovic won by a super-thin 1.80-point margin over runner-up James Lichtenstein of the US. World champion Aidan Heslop battled his way into third place, merely 2.4 points behind Lichtenstein, despite a dive that had put him in 15th place on Saturday.

On the women’s side, North Americans celebrated in Manama’s north harbor as Canada’s Molly Carlson captured gold on her final dive, ahead of teammate Simone Leathead and Kaylea Arnett of the US who placed third. But Rhiannan Iffland was the talk of the day. The four-time world champion from Australia was leading after the first three rounds and made a technical error on her final dive that put her in ninth place, her worst finish since her 2016 World Cup debut.   

For details, keep reading.

Men’s 27m

On the men’s 27-meter platform, the 2023 world champion Popovici took the lead on his first dive and maintained it through three rounds, but he never had more than a six-point cushion over his nearest competitor.  With one dive to go, Popovici, Lichtenstein, Heslop stood 1-2-4.

Heslop, the reigning world champion, had already made a remarkable ascent on Saturday, rising from 15th place to fifth. He was fourth before his final dive on Sunday, a show-stopping 6.2 DD (a forward quad with 3 ½ twists) which scored 139.50 points to put him in podium position with a total of 403.80.

Lichtenstein’s final dive was easier than Popovici’s and Heslop’s – a back quint with a 5.3 degree of difficulty. It was so clean that it scored 127.20 points, putting him 2.40 points ahead of Heslop.

Popovici was  the last diver on the 27-meter tower. He needed 121.2 points to win. He was relying on his signature armstand back 3½ somersaults with 3 twists (with a 6.0 DD). In the end, it earned 123.00 points – less than Heslop’s and Lichtenstein’s final dives – but his 408.00 grand total was just enough to win.

"Every year, the competition gets tougher,” said the 35-year-old Popovici. “I’m happy to have won today, but it was definitely a close one. It’s been exciting."

Runner-up Lichtenstein proved that he was on a roll. In Bahrain, he made his first World Aquatics high diving podium, just one month after he won his first Red Bull Cliff Diving event. The 29-year-old from Illinois attributed his recent success to “a lot of training” – both physical and mental – and putting his trust in that training.

“I am trying to eliminate self-doubts on the platform as much as possible,” Lichtenstein said, adding that he’s also trying not to overthink each dive, so he can be “kind of automatic, stepping to the end [of the tower] and breathing a couple of times.”

The 22-year-old Heslop was also happy to make the podium. On Sunday, he said, “I tried to put pressure on the other contenders. I managed to finish strong.”

Mexico’s Yolotl Otniel Martinez Cabral leaped from seventh place into fourth place on his final dive, followed by Spain’s Carlos Gimeno, 34, who placed fifth.

Women’s 20m

The women finished the day on the 20m platform.

Over the first three rounds, the leaderboard had been shuffling wildly – except for the four-time world champion, Rhiannan Iffland, who led after each dive. With one dive to go, Iffland was 16.00 points ahead of American Kaylea Arnett. Molly Carlson, 25, was in third place, and Simone Leathead was trailing in seventh.

Since the start order for the last dive is in the reverse order of the third-round standings, it means that the leaders perform last.

Leathead put down a solid back triple with one twist to take the lead with 307.80 points. She stayed in first place with three divers remaining. Just then, Carlson threw her second-hardest dive of the contest, an inward triple with ½ twist tuck (with 3.8 DD) to eclipse Leathead by 16.40 points.

Arnett went next. The American needed 95.80 to overtake Carlson for the lead, and her dive was slightly harder than both of the Canadians’ so the pressure was on. Arnett’s inward triple with ½ twist pike (with a 4.0 DD) earned 78.00 points, however, putting her in third behind Carlson and Leathead.

That left Iffland.  She had saved her hardest dive for last (which was a strategic switch from Doha seven months earlier, where she did the same dive much earlier en route to winning her fourth consecutive world title). It was a back triple with two twists (with a 4.3 DD). In the air, everything looked clean until the landing where she entered the water with both arms lifted above her shoulders - a big no-no, which carried a significant penalty. She scored 3.5s and 4.0s from the judges for a total of 47.30 points, dropping her to ninth place with a final tally of 292.70 points. The last time Iffland finished that far back was in 2016, when she made her World Cup debut and finished 10th among the 10 competitors.

That meant that Carlson, Leathead, and Arnett finished 1-2-3 to give North America a sweep of the medals.

Carlson was delighted to share the podium with her young and talented teammate, Leathead.

As for Iffland, Carlson said, “We are friends and fun competitors. We are all humans; we all do mistakes. I am sure she will come back stronger.”

In the meantime, Arnett, 31, said she was especially “thrilled to have won a medal” after placing fourth at the 2024 World Aquatics Championships and spraining her knee in mid-July. Arnett was deliberately doing some easier dives than she did in Doha. She said that the shift has given her greater comfort and confidence.

Next, the divers will travel to Brasilia, Brazil, for the second high diving World Cup, from October 11-13.

 Top 5 men - final

  1. POPOVICI Constantin (ROU) 408.00
  2. LICHTENSTEIN, James (USA) 406.20
  3. HESLOP, Aidan (GBR) 403.80
  4. MARTINEZ CABRAL, Yolotl Otneil (MEX) 379.40
  5. GIMENO, Carlos (ESP) 374.30

Top 5 women - final

  1. CARLSON, Molly (CAN) 324.20
  2. LEATHEAD, Simone (CAN) 307.80
  3. ARNETT Kaylea (USA) 306.40
  4. PENNISI, Xantheia (AUS) 305.05
  5. CARPENTER, Meili (USA) 298.95

 *9.  IFFLAND, Rhiannan (AUS) 292.70