World Championships: Italy’s Matteo Santoro, Chiara Pellacani Win Thrilling Synchro
The Italian duo of Matteo Santoro and Chiara Pellacani won a thriller of a final in mixed 3-meter synchro Wednesday at the World Aquatics Championships.
Santoro and Pellacani finished with 308.13 points, 0.87 ahead of the Aussie duo Cassiel Rousseau and Maddison Keeney and 2.43 up on the Chinese duo of Cheng Zilong and Li Yajie, who slid to third.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Pellacani said. 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.”
The medal is the first gold and sixth all-time medal for Pellacani at Worlds. She earned bronze on 1-meter earlier this week. It’s the fourth straight edition that this duo has medaled in this event, with two silvers and a bronze.
“I think it’s because we’ve known each other for so long,” Pellacani said. “He was four years old and I was eight years old, and we started diving together. We grew up together, and it’s like a brother-sister relationship. I think this really helped us on the board because we trust each other and it just makes everything easier.”
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Santoro and Pellacani were fifth after two rounds and 11.7 points back after three. But a score of 75.33 on the 107B in the fourth round was the second-highest dive of the entire final to vault them into the lead.
Matteo Santoro and Chiara Pellacani celebrate upon finding themselves in gold-medal position; Photo Courtesy: World Aquatics/Singapore 2025
The Italians scored 69.30 on the final dive, third-best in the field. And since the two best dives in that fifth and final round came from the teams directly behind them, things got tight in a hurry.
Rousseau and Keeney were in medal position the whole way, finishing with 307.26. They had the best dive of the entire competition with a tally of 79.56 on their concluding 5154B, getting within a point of the summit.
“We’re really excited,” Keeney said. “This is the first time we’ve competed in this event together, and we did not really train (for) it, and Cassiel doesn’t have as much experience on springboard. But it was so much fun. The competition was really close, which made it really thrilling for the spectators and for us.”
The Chinese duo, meanwhile, was first through three rounds it what appeared to be a repeat of seven of the first eight finals in Singapore that led to Chinese dominance. But their 205B netted only 58.50 points, sixth-best in the round and dropping them to third in 305.70. They scored 72.00 in the fifth round, which narrowed their gap on the leading Italians but saw the Aussies leapfrog them.
“We had some issues,” Li said of the fourth dive. “When we were preparing to jump, we had already stepped out, and then the whistle was blown. It’s possible that we didn’t hear it, or that he blew it again. So there might have been a problem — maybe Cheng didn’t hear it, but I was the one calling the rhythm, and I did hear it. That might have had some impact. We were worried that if we jumped, they might not give us a score and might even give us zero. It wasn’t a matter of whether we were in sync or not.”
The medalists separated themselves early. Osmar Olvera and Zyanya Parra of Mexico were fourth in 278.82. The American pair of Luke Hernandez and Kyndal Knight finished seventh.
Keeney picked up her second medal of the games, to go with 1-meter springboard goal. She has 10 all-time World Championships medals (four gold, three silver, three bronze). Roussel picked up his third career medal.
For China, Li has a second medal of this event, with silver on 1meter. Cheng has a medal of every color in Singapore as China is up to 10 medals; every other nation has a total of 27.
