World Championships: Rhiannan Iffland Wins Women’s High Diving; American Maya Kelly in Bronze
Rhiannan Iffland of Australia won the women’s high diving gold medal on Saturday at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore. Bronze went to American Maya Kelly, the first American female high diving medal since 2015.
The silver medal went to Canada’s Simone Leathead Saturday, with the final dive extremely consequential for the medal placements at Palawan Green.
That didn’t effect Iffland, though. The Aussie won her fifth Worlds gold with just about a wire-to-wire lead. She was second after one round but delivered the best dive of each of the next five rounds. The first four rounds were held on Thursday with the fifth and sixth Saturday, the latter after a two-hour weather delay.
“This one’s crazy,” Iffland said. “I’ve already achieved four in the past, and I was wondering about the possibility of winning a fifth. I came into this event knowing I could be fighting for it, but it wasn’t my main goal. It’s insane, I’m blown away, I’m kind speechless right now. I never would have thought 10 years ago I would be holding my fifth medal.”
Iffland led by 28.60 points over Canadian Molly Carlson after four rounds. Two of the three divers in medal position after four rounds didn’t end up on the podium thanks to a chaotic Saturday and a new meet format.
Maya Kelly; Photo Courtesy: World Aquatics/Singapore 2025
American Kaylea Arnett was third as of Thursday night, despite delivering just the 12th-best dive of the first round. The 32-year-old was just .75 points behind Carlson. Kelly sat sixth, Leathead 10th.
The final tally, though, omitted the scores of the optional second and fourth rounds, scoring just dives 1 and 3 in a new format this year.
“It’s different, for sure,” Leathead said. We’re used to doing four dives and that’s it, so being able to do them again for me was a bit stressful, but I also didn’t want to have two great dives at the beginning of the event. So I tried to keep it steady, and I think that’s what I did.”
Iffland scored 105.35 points on Dive 5, her lead over Carlson 24.35 points when Carlson scored 98.80, the second-highest total. Arnett was third. Leathead scored 81.40 points to move up to fourth. Kelly jumped to fifth, with 88.80 points.
Iffland made no mistake on the final dive, despite the delay, delivering another 102.60 points to take her final tally to 359.25.
Leathead and Kelly both scored 90 on their final dives, the Canadian to get to 314.50 for silver and Kelly to 310.0 for bronze. Arnett struggled, her dive scoring just 65.60, the 10th-best of the final round, to slid to 291.50 and off the podium. It was even worse for Carlson, who recovered from an injury just before the meet. She scored just 39.60 points, the 13th-highest tally of the round, to drop to ninth overall.
“The weather conditions for us high divers are nothing new,” Iffland said. “I just sat back and relaxed, and made jokes. I had something to eat, and I was pretty confident in (the organizers) making the decision to continue this afternoon. So I didn’t switch my mind off too much. Just kept it together, relaxed and got ready for the dive.”
American women went 1-2 in the first two iterations of high diving at the World Championships. Cesilie Carlton won the inaugural event in Barcelona in 2013 with countrywoman Ginger Huber in silver position. Carlton was second two years later in Kazan with teammate Rachelle Simpson winning. But the Americans women haven’t medaled until Kelly, an 18-year-old from Lake Elmo, Minnesota, pulled it off Saturday in her first senior competition.
“I’m super excited,” Kelly said. “I did not expect this, so for it to be my first time and to do the best diving I’ve ever done is really cool, and I’m really proud of myself.”
Women’s high diving medalists, from left: Simone Leathead of Canada, Rhiannan Iffland of Australia and Maya Kelly of the U.S.’ Photo Courtesy: World Aquatics/Singapore 2025
