World Aquatics Names Rhiannan Iffland, James Lichtenstein High Divers of the Year
World Aquatics this week named Rhiannan Iffland and James Lichtenstein its high divers of the year for 2025.
Iffland, 34, won this award in 2023. The Australian won the 20-meter final at the World Aquatics World Championships in Singapore. The victory earned her a fifth career world title.
“I came into this event knowing I could be fighting for it, but it wasn’t my main goal,” Iffland said after the competition. “It’s insane, I’m blown away. I’m kind of speechless right now. I never would have thought 10 years ago I would be holding my fifth medal.”
Iffland led wire-to-wire in Singapore, her score of 359.25 points easily better than Simone Leathead of Canada (314.50) and bronze medalist American Maya Kelly.
The native of Newcastle, New South Wales, has won five world titles, the first in 2017. She lays claim to five of the seven titles ever given out in this discipline, which World Aquatics began sponsoring in 2013. She is also a seven-time Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series champion.
Iffland added a win in the World Aquatics World Cup in Porto Flavia, Italy, scoring 356.05 to hold off American Kaylea Arnett by 31 points.
Lichtenstein broke through for his first major title on 27-meter in Singapore at the age of 30. He did it in dramatic fashion, rallying past Spain’s Carlos Gimeno on the final round to get the gold by a margin of 3.6 points. Lichtenstein had been fourth at the 2024 World Championships and seventh in his Worlds debut in 2022.
Lichtenstein was the first American man to win the world title since Steven LoBue in 2017.
Like Iffland, Lichtenstein won the World Cup title in Porto Flavio. His score of 411.30 was 5.1 points ahead of Worlds bronze medalist and 2023 champion Constantin Popovici of Romania with Gimeno third.
