World Championships: Maddison Keeney Wins 1 Meter; Americans Open with Two 4th
Maddison Keeney started the diving competition at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships with a gold medal on 1-meter springboard, while the U.S. finished fourth in both of the opening day’s events in Singapore.
Keeney scored 308.00 points to finished 17.75 points up on China Li Yajie. Chiara Pellacani of Italy earned bronze, .35 points of American Hailey Hernandez.
The Americans also finished fourth in the mixed 3M/10M team event, won by China.
Keeney, who won Olympic silver on 3-meter in Paris, started the finals at the OCBC Aquatic Center on a rough note, her first dive landing her 12th, 17.55 points off the pace set by China’s Jia Chen. But Keeney produced the best dive of three of the last four rounds, getting into the lead with 66 points on her second-round 305C. It was a repeat of prelims, when Keeney was 15th after one round but ended up with the highest score of the morning.
“It was more me because I know that with the high level of difficulty list, I have the potential to win maybe more easily than others,” Keeney said. “So it’s really good practice for me to go out and compete with that external expectation of everyone else thinking that I can do it. It’s also really good practice for my 3m event, which is my main event, so I’m really grateful for having the opportunity to put myself in a difficult position under a lot of pressure and still perform well.”
Keeney finished off her program with the best dive of the competition, scoring 72 points on a 5152B in the fifth round.
“Since I was the last diver, I knew I was in a good position,” she said. “But I didn’t want to get ahead of myself and think about the result. My coach will give me one or two pointers, so I just think about my hurdle and my take off.”
Li ran second the entire way, scoring 290.25 to score silver. It’s her third medal at Worlds, having won this event in Budapest in 2022 and finished second in 2023 in Fukuoka.
Pellacani was eighth after prelims and 11th after one round. But she steadily climbed to the podium, getting there in the fourth round. She delivered just the ninth-best dive of the fifth and final round, scoring 52.80 points. Hernandez needed to pick up 2.15 points on that final dive, but the 54.60 on her 5134D cut all but .35 of that deficit.
Switzerland’s Michelle Heimberg finished fifth, a further five points back. Chen led after one round but struggled mightily on her second and third dives, the latter getting just 25.50 points. She finished ninth.
China started slow in the team event, third after one round and second after two. But they delivered the best three dives of the platform rounds to score 466.25 and win by nearly 40 points over Mexico. Cheng Zilong, Chen Yiwen, Cao Yuan and Chen Yuxi comprised the star-studded squad. It’s the eighth career Worlds medal for both Chen Yiwen and Chen Yuxi and the 10th for Cao. Cheng is in his first Worlds.
“We all performed so well,” Chen Yuxi said. “There are some areas to improve on, but we all gave it our all to contribute to this gold medal.”
Mexico finished second with 426.30 points with the team of Osmar Olvera, Randa Willars, Alejandra Estudillo and Zyanya Yunuen Parra.
“It feels great,” Olvera said. “I think it’s a good result for the next few events moving forward. … We’re really happy.”
Third was Japan in 409.65. The U.S. was less than 5 points back with a score of 404.90. Its quartet was Jack Ryan, Carson Tyler, Sophie Verzyl and Daryn Wright.
