Australia’s Cassiel Rousseau dove out of his mind on Sunday to close the 2025 world championships with gold in men’s 10m. Ukraine and Mexico went 2-3. For the first time since 1982, China wasn’t on the podium.
SINGAPORE – Cassiel Rousseau was all business on Sunday. Just as in 2023 when the Aussie won the men’s 10m world title, the Singapore final was a smackdown. In the very last round, the judges released a string of 90-plus scores to ramp up the intensity, and when it was over, Rousseau was a two-time world champion with a personal best 534.80 points.
Oleksii Sereda of Ukraine took silver (19.60 points behind Rousseau). Randal Willars Valdez of Mexico earned the bronze.
“If we had to compete tomorrow, it could have been a completely different podium,” said Rousseau, 24. “Diving has a lot of chops and changes; that’s why I love it. Thankfully, today, I was able to become first.”
Rousseau and China’s Zhu Zifeng traded leads throughout the first four rounds – no surprise on the surface, but the subplot was that four different divers had the best dive in each of those four rounds, each scoring 89 or 90+ points: Rousseau in round one, Zhu in round two, 14-year-old Zhao Renjie of China in round three, and Japan’s 2022 silver medalist Rikuto Tamai, 18, in round four.
Only one of the four made the podium, however, because inconsistency was especially cruel on Sunday. Woe to anyone who had a single-dive score less than 76.80 points.
With one dive remaining, Rousseau, Sereda and Willars Valdez were poised 1-2-3. Willars Valdez went early in the lineup and would quickly learn if his high-risk 4.1 DD dive would pay off. His forward 4½ pike was the most difficult in the competition by far.
It was well-executed and scored 98.40.
Sereda was the next real contender. He nailed his back 2½ with 2½ twists pike and earned 91.80 points to keep Ukraine ahead of Mexico.
Rousseau was next.
“When I saw Oleksii [Sereda] nail his last dive, I was just thinking, ‘What the f***.’ Like, why did he have to do that because now I have to go above and beyond,” Rousseau said.
Rousseau then ripped his final dive (a forward 4½), scored 99.90, and the throwdown kept rolling.
Tamai needed 139 points to overtake Rousseau – which wasn’t going to happen – but he earned 97.20 points for the same dive as Sereda. At best Tamai would be fourth – and at worst, sixth, because there were two divers remaining: both from China.
The very-young Zhao ripped the same dive as Sereda and Tamai but “only” scored 88.20.
Zhu, too, ripped the same dive – scored 97.20, cleared the 500-point mark, but still finished fourth (5.85 points shy of third place). It was the first time since 1982 that China wasn’t on the podium in men’s 10m at a world championship.
Zhao – still no taller than the dive railing – placed fifth with a stunning 499.95 points. Tamai finished sixth.
Afterwards, Rousseau said that after winning his first world title in 2023, “Last year wasn’t fun at all. I had a pretty bad year in life and in diving, but coming into this year I’ve been having a lot more fun and I’ve been a lot more motivated. Even if I didn’t come first today, that fun would have still carried across. This medal just tops it.”
Runner-up Sereda, 19, was really pleased with silver after taking bronze in 2024.
“I see progress,” Sereda said. “It’s a really great feeling when you’re working [hard] and you get a result, so I will be working even more to be the first.”
Training in a war zone adds another dimension.
“Because of the war in Ukraine, we had to go somewhere abroad to prepare – to not hear rockets, to sleep normally, to just live normally,” he said.
Sereda spent a month in Poland and Hungary before travelling to Singapore.
“Mentally, it’s also really, really hard when [I] know that my father is fighting. He’s almost on the front line. I’m trying to call him as much as possible because it’s really dangerous to be there. I think today he watched me. I’m not sure because he is really close to the front.
“For Ukraine, I think [Sunday’s result] means that we are capable to achieve great results. We are capable to fight even in these conditions, and we are capable to win. I hope that I inspire someone. I don’t know, because I’m not a world champion. I don’t know if I can inspire someone. But anyway, I would really like this war to end as fast as possible, because it’s not normal life. It’s not how it must be.”
Next, Sereda said, he’s going back to Kyiv. In September, he will take vacation for 20 days. After that? “Again work, work as hard as possible,” he said. “I don’t know if I’m going to be alive. Really, I’m not kidding. Today, in Mykolaiv, my pool where I’ve been training for five years and when I was young, was partially destroyed. Sometimes, rockets are really close, and you have no idea if you’re going to wake up again.”
Singapore 2025 Final Medal Standings – Diving
China (16 medals) 9 gold, 3 silver, 4 bronze
Mexico (7 medals) 1 gold, 4 silver, 2 bronze
Australia (3 medals) 2 gold, 1 silver
Italy (3 medals) 1 gold 2 bronze
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (2 medals) 1 silver, 1 bronze
Great Britain (2 medals) 1 silver, 1 bronze
Neutral B (2 medals) 1 silver, 1 bronze
Germany (1 medal) 1 silver
Ukraine (1 medal) 1 silver
Japan (1 medal) 1 bronze
United States (1 medal) 1 bronze