This marks the third publication in World Aquatics’ results report series, following last year’s editions on the Paris 2024 Olympic aquatic sports and the World Aquatics Swimming Championships (25m) in Budapest.

These reports provide everyone, from performance teams and aquatics fans, with valuable insights into the competitions that captured global attention this past July and August during the first World Aquatics Championships held in Southeast Asia. Beyond this, the reports also support World Aquatics’ technical decision-making by offering detailed analyses of performance trends and statistics.

The full sport-by-sport report section from the Singapore 2025 Worlds is available HERE.

China’s Diving Dynasty Endures in Singapore, but Challengers Rise to the Occasion

The diving competition at the World Aquatics Championships – Singapore 2025 saw 278 athletes from 54 countries compete across 13 events.  Six of these were individual competitions – Women’s 1m Springboard, Men’s 1m Springboard, Women’s 3m Springboard, Men’s 3m Springboard, Women’s 10m Platform, and Men’s 10m Platform – and six were synchronised events -- Women’s 3m Synchronized, Men’s 3m Synchronized, Women’s 10m Synchronized, Men’s 10m Synchronized, Mixed 3m Synchronized, and Mixed 10m Synchronized.

The 13th diving competition at the 2025 Worlds was the Mixed Team Event. Each team, featuring a mixed-gender lineup, performs a set of dives across a range of heights on the springboard and platform, both in the individual and synchronised disciplines. Over the nine-day programme, athletes executed more than 3,300 competition dives.

China once again dominated the diving medal table with nine golds, three silver and four bronze medal performances. However, this wasn’t the historic golden sweep that Chinese divers achieved at the Paris 2024 Olympics, with rivals from Australia (two golds), Italy and Mexico also standing atop the diving podium in Singapore.

Not surprisingly, considering China’s global diving dominance, Asia also topped the continental medal distribution charts with 19 total medals, followed by Europe (9 medals), the Americas (8 medals) and Oceania (3). While Maha Amer of Egypt won gold in the Women’s 1m Springboard event at the 2024 Worlds in Doha, African divers did not record a medal at the 2025 Worlds in Singapore.

One of the standout moments came in the Men’s 3m Springboard, where China’s gold-medal streak at the World Championships—unbroken since Melbourne 2007—came to an end. Mexico’s Osmar Olvera Ibarra delivered a stunning performance to defeat triple world champion Wang Zongyuan and 2016 Olympic gold medallist Cao Yuan, securing Mexico’s first-ever world title in the event.

“It’s a dream come true: to be a world champion in an Olympic event,” said Olvera Ibarra, the Men’s 1m Springboard world champion from Doha. “In the morning, I thought, ‘I will be a champion today. Today is the day I get a gold medal.’”

Ibarra, who also earned silver and bronze medals at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, was named the top overall male diver of the championships. On the women’s side, China’s Chen Yiwen was one of the standout women divers, winning three gold medals—in the individual 3m Springboard, 3m Synchro, and the Mixed Team event. A nine-time world champion and two-time Olympic gold medallist, Chen further cemented her legacy in Singapore.

Chen credited focus and a sharp mental focus to carrying her to victory despite not being at her physical best in Singapore.

“I’ve been feeling a little under the weather these past few days. I wasn’t feeling quite my usual self. I wasn’t feeling as confident in my dives as I normally would. I’ve competed in this venue before, but it’s been so many years. I was so young then (in 2017), I was still a kid and didn’t really think about much. I had so much fun the last time I came to Singapore.”

One week later, Chen again pulled through in the Women’s 3m Springboard, stating:

“Actually, to execute my dives so well today is a bit of a surprise, because I’ve been a bit tired the last two days and my training since I arrived here hasn’t been ideal.”

To explore the full data and insights from the diving competitions in Singapore, you can view this HERE.

High Drama from the Heights: USA’s Lichtenstein’s Last-Dive Triumph and Australia’s Iffland’s Continued Supremacy

From 24 to 27 July 24, the high diving tower on Sentosa Island, just across the bay from downtown Singapore, became the focal point for watching daring aquatics athletes showcase their poise and precision.

During the first two days, preliminary dives narrowed the competition to the top 14-ranked divers. The men and women then completed their final two dives over the next two days.

Tension filled the air at the high diving competition as James Lichtenstein from the USA made a remarkable comeback to win the gold medal from the men's 27m tower in Sentosa on July 26th. He narrowly outscored Carlos Gimeno of Spain, achieving a total of 428.9 points compared to Gimeno's 425.3. Constantin Popovici from Romania, the 2023 World Champion, completed the podium.

Lichtenstein praised the updated competition format, highlighting that this win was a significant achievement for the 31-year-old diver from Buffalo Grove, Illinois.

"It's a huge honour. I've been training really hard for this. I had a tough start to the season, but I kept my head up and continued to put in the work," Lichtenstein reflected after his triumph in Singapore. "Everyone hits barriers, and sometimes you stumble, but I am absolutely thrilled right now. I know I can dive well, but putting it all together when it counts is an exhilarating feeling.”

Meanwhile, on the women's side, Australia's Rhiannan Iffland again demonstrated her dominance in high diving by clinching her fifth consecutive world title from the 20-meter tower. "It's insane! I'm blown away; I'm kind of speechless right now," Iffland said, reflecting on her undefeated run from the 2017 World Championships in Budapest to the 2025 Championships in Singapore. "I never would have thought, 10 years ago, that I would be holding my fifth medal."

Iffland first made a splash on the world high diving scene in 2016, winning on the Red Bull Cliff Diving circuit, just one year before her record-extending reign from the women’s 20-meter tower began. Over the past decade, she has been the standard-bearer for women's high diving. However, Iffland acknowledges that a new generation of divers is pushing the sport further and faster.

"This sport, especially on the women's side, has grown significantly. The ages of competitors are getting younger, and many talented young athletes are emerging, which has made the field very competitive," she noted. "We're seeing an increase in dive difficulty, which raises the scores—and the pressure. That’s the main difference, but I hope we can continue to grow the sport in the years to come."

Find out more about the performance statistics that the seven high diving judges evaluate each of the high dives on, which specific dives garnered the highest points totals on, and which countries and athletes were the top scorers from the four days of high diving at the World Aquatics Championships – Singapore 2025. The entire high diving report is HERE.