European Aquatics Athlete of the Year Awards 2025: Chiara Pellacani voted best women’s diver

Italy’s Chiara Pellacani has been named best women’s diver in the 2025 European Aquatics Athlete of the Year Awards.

Pellacani, who turned 23 on September 12, claimed 41.56% of he vote after a season of historic achievement in individual and mixed competition.

At the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore she combined with Matteo Santoro in the 3m synchro to earn Italy’s first world diving gold since 2015.

It was the culmination of ambition for a pair who had been mixed 3m synchro silver medallists at the World Aquatics Championships in 2022 and 2024 and bronze medallists in 2023.

“It feels incredible,” Pellacani told World Aquatics. “We worked hard for this. We were trying to keep calm during all the dives and we’re very happy that we made it.

“I couldn’t believe it, we just started screaming because it was crazy to see on the board that we were first. It’s just emotions that are hard to describe.”

Pellacani, who had previously earned four world medals in synchro events, also made an individual breakthrough in Singapore as she won bronze medals in the 1m and 3m springboard.

Earlier in the summer Pellacani had achieved success at the European Aquatics Diving Championships in Antalya, where she won the 1m springboard title and she and Santoro took 3m synchro silver.

Second place, with a vote share of 34.49%, went to Michelle Heimberg of Switzerland, who won this award in 2023.

Heimberg took the rest of 2024 off after failing to qualify for the Paris Olympics and made a telling return to international competition at the European Championships.

Two years after earning 3m springboard bronze and 1m springboard gold in the Championship held within the European Games she produced a mirror image of those successes, taking 1m bronze before securing the 3m title.

She thus added to the three other European medals earned earlier – 3m silver in 2017 and 2022, and 1m silver in 2020.

“At the moment I’m still a bit overwhelmed with the emotions as well because I won the prelims and now I was able to do the same in the final and take home the gold medal,” she told European Aquatics in Antalya.

“So I’m really proud of myself for not stressing in a competition and taking it home.

“Now I have a full set of medals on 1m and 3m and it feels amazing because diving in Switzerland is not so big so to achieve something like this is amazing for my country and myself and I’m just really proud of how I did the competition today.

“After I missed qualification for the Paris Olympics it was kind of a hard time and I just needed a break from diving, from sports. So I took six months off, I wasn’t in a pool the whole time, I never touched a springboard.

“And I did come back last summer and had so much fun again. I was diving for myself and no one else, and now I am enjoying it more than ever before.”

At the World Aquatics Championships Heimberg finished fifth in the 1m final and eighth in the 3m final.

Third place with a vote share of 12.37% went to Germany’s Pauline Pfeif, who also managed a landmark achievement in Singapore as she won her first world medal, taking silver in the 10m platform.

Pfeif had earlier come away from Antalya laden with medals. She earned silver in the team event and the 10m platform and bronze in the mixed 10m synchro and women’s 10m synchro.

Pfeif’s team-mate Lena Hentschel finished fifth in the voting.

The 23-year-old  earned dramatic success at the European Aquatics Diving Championships as she and her 19-year-old partner Luis Avila, making his international debut, claimed gold in the mixed 3m synchro by 0.03 after overtaking Pellacani and Santoro with their last dive.

Hentschel and Avila went on to earn mixed 3m synchro gold at the Summer World University Games in Berlin and finished fifth in the Singapore World Championships.

Hentschel also won European silver in the women’s 3m synchro in partnership with Jette Muller.

Fourth place in the voting went to Pellacani’s 25-year-old compatriot Sarah Jodoin Di Maria, who claimed the first individual European gold of her career as she beat Pfeif to 10m platform gold.

The Canadian-born diver, who already had European team gold and silver medals, secured the 10m title after an intense competition with her German rival.

Di Maria also earned silver in the mixed synchro 10m, partnering Riccardo Giovannini.

Mike Rowbottom for European Aquatics

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