On a humid Friday, Finn Awe of Germany won the 3m junior world title for boys 14-15, ahead of Ukraine’s Valerii Malieiev and Dmytro Stepanov. In the 16- to18-year-old girls platform event, Xu Nan won gold for China, ahead of Maisie Bond of Great Britain and Mariana Osorio of Colombia.
RIO DE JANEIRO – Neither a gentle rain nor thick humidity could stop Germany’s Finn Awe from delivering excellence on Friday at the outdoor diving pool in Rio. The Rostock-based athlete aced the morning’s prelims on the 3m springboard (from which his first five scores carried over into the final).
He then led the field after each dive in the four-round final to win 3-meter gold medal in the 14- to 15-year-old boys division with 474.15 points. It was a sweet comeback for Awe who lost the 2024 Junior European Championships in July to Dmytro Stepanov, the Ukrainian who took bronze on Friday with 441.25 points. Between the two was Ukraine’s Valerii Malieiev, who had been the bronze medalist at the Junior European Championships. On Friday, Malieiev earned silver with 470.10 points, so it was the same podium in a different order.
A short while later, Xu Nan gave China its fourth gold medal in Rio by winning the 16-to-18-year-old girls’ platform title with a more difficult dive list than any other athlete in the top four. Her 465.75-point total included an event-high 80.00 points for her inward 3½ in the second round where she took an irrevocable lead.
Maisie Bond of Great Britain captured the silver medal, just as she had at the 2022 junior world championships in the younger (Group B) division – but there was a major difference this time (more on that, below). Mariana Osorio claimed the bronze for Colombia, with 400.80 points, despite starting the final in eighth place based on her first four dives in prelims, which counted toward the eight-dive final score.
Here’s what the medallists had to say.
Boys B – 3m Springboard
The 3m gold medal in Group B didn’t come as a surprise to the 15-year-old Awe. “I knew I was in the lead; I watched the leaderboard,” he said, but instead of feeling pressure, he said, “I focused.” Then he immediately expressed unprompted gratitude. “Thank you to my coach, to my family, to my friends, to the German team that supported me,” Awe said. “I train in Rostock with Lucas Orlowski. He’s the best coach.”
Silver medalist Malieiev of the Ukraine said that his most important dive was his fourth and final one, a forward 2½ with a twist with a 3.0 degree of difficulty. It wasn’t his hardest dive, but it produced the highest score of the entire competition (72.00 points) and it narrowed the 23.55-point gap between him and Awe to a mere 4.05 for the silver.
“I’ve been working on that dive half a year,’ said the 15-year-old Malieiev who started diving at age 4. Asked to identify the best part of diving, he said, “winning medals, of course.”
Bronze medalist Stepanov of Ukraine was the youngest diver on the podium Friday, at 14. He felt that his second dive in the final, an inward 2½, was the hardest to execute because he recently started to do that dive “so it makes me nervous.” The reigning Junior European Champion has now been diving half his life; he started at age 7.
Girls A – Platform
Xu Nan, 17, the gold medalist in the girls’ 16- to 18-year-old platform said, “I’m very happy I had a good performance today.” She attributed her victory to “good luck and very good training – but no, not good sleep.” When she gets home, she already knows where her medal will go. “There is a very special place” she said, where her family keeps all her medals: “My parents’ bedroom.”
The bronze medalist, Mariana Osorio, also considered giving her medal to her parents back in Colombia. “I’m pretty excited about this,” she said. “During the last dive, my heart was pounding. I don’t know how to describe the emotion.” It was the first junior world championship medal for the 18-year-old who trains at the University of Pittsburgh in the United States.
For Maisie Bond of Great Britain, Friday’s silver medal was a deeply emotional achievement. Even though Bond had already earned a bronze medal in synchro platform on Day 1, the individual silver reminded her of a similar moment at the 2022 Junior World Championships where she earned the platform silver in group B at age 15.
“Mentally, this one was a lot more difficult,” said Bond, now 17. “The buildup and the past few years have been hard.” Asked to identify a low point since then, she referred to our 2022 interview in Montreal after the group B platform final.
“In Canada, you asked me who I dedicate my medal for. It was my dad. And my dad is no longer with us. He died last year, in July. That was the hardest part, I think, diving for him today.” Even though Jon Bond wasn’t in the stands this time, he would still be proud. “Thank you,” she replied, eye-to-eye and heart-to-heart. “That’s always the aim.”
NEXT: There will be two more diving finals on Saturday: 3m springboard for girls 14-15 years old, and platform for boys 16-18 years old. The 2024 World Aquatics Junior Diving Championships will end on Sunday with girl’s platform for ages 16-18 and the grand finale: 1m springboard for boys 14-15.