Oleksii Sereda, following a breakthrough year in which he won his first individual World Aquatics Championships medal, has been named best male diver in Europe at the 2025 European Aquatics Athlete of the Year Awards.
The 19-year-old Ukrainian, a former European champion on the 10m platform, earned silver at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore in one of the most closely contested men’s individual 10m platform finals in recent years. Sereda was part of a four-way battle for the title alongside Australia’s Cassiel Rousseau, Mexico’s Randal Willars Valdez, and China’s Zhu Zifeng, underlining his growing consistency at the highest level of the sport.
Sereda secured 33.23 per cent of the combined public and national federation vote in the European Aquatics Athlete of the Year Awards. His strong showing at the World Championships was complemented by further success at the World Aquatics Diving World Cup Super Final in Beijing. There, he added silver in the mixed 3m & 10m team event and bronze in the men’s 10m synchronised competition.
At the European Aquatics Diving Championships in Antalya, Türkiye, Sereda played a central role in Ukraine topping the medal table. He claimed three gold medals: in the mixed team event, the men’s 10m synchronised event alongside 15-year-old Mark Hrytsenko, and the men’s 10m platform. This marked his third European title in the event. He previously won gold at the Kyiv 2019 Championships at 14, and again in Rome in 2022.
The race for second place in the Athlete of the Year voting was exceptionally close. Poland’s Andrzej Rzeszutek finished runner-up, earning 25.05 per cent of the overall combined vote. Italy’s Matteo Santoro followed closely, receiving 24.71 per cent.
Rzeszutek, 33, delivered a standout performance at the European Championships in Antalya. He secured Poland’s first medal of the meet in dramatic fashion and turned it into gold. The experienced springboard diver capitalised on a late error from Germany’s Moritz Wesemann to claim the men’s 3m springboard title. He added this victory to the European 1m springboard gold he won in Belgrade in 2024.
Santoro concluded his season on a high note at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore. There, he and his partner, Chiara Pellacani, the 2025 European Aquatics Woman Diver of the Year, claimed gold in the mixed 3m synchronised event. The win marked Italy’s first world diving title since 2015 and capped an emotional breakthrough for the young Italian pair. Santoro also won European bronze in the mixed team event, having narrowly missed out on European mixed 3m synchro gold earlier in the season.
Germany’s Wesemann finished fourth in the voting with a 9.54 per cent share after a successful European Championships campaign. He earned gold in the 1m springboard and gold in the 3m synchronised event with Timo Barthel. He also won bronze medals at the World Aquatics Diving World Cup Super Final before finishing sixth in both springboard events at the World Aquatics Championships.
Great Britain’s Jordan Houlden rounded out the leading contenders with 7.40 per cent of the vote. The Sheffield-based diver finished as the top European in both the 1m and 3m springboard events at the World Aquatics Championships. He narrowly missed the podium in each competition. Earlier in the season, Houlden secured his first global gold by winning the men’s 3m springboard at the World Aquatics Diving World Cup stop in Windsor, Canada.