World Champion! James Lichtenstein Wins 27-Meter High Diving Gold at World Aquatics Championships

Lichtenstein’s gold was the second medal won by U.S. high divers in Singapore, as Maya Kelly claimed bronze in the women’s 20-meter competition on Saturday.

High divers saw a new competition format at this year’s World Championships. Previously, high diving consisted of two days of competition and four dives. This year, divers performed four dives in the preliminaries on Thursday and Friday, with scores from two of those dives carrying over into the final, where they would perform two additional dives. Lichtenstein was third behind Popovici and Gimeno in the preliminary.

“It’s the first time we’ve ever done a competition like this, so I kind of paced myself. I didn’t do as many dives, so I was really fresh for today. It’s amazing, incredible. A dream come true for sure,” Lichtenstein said.

Lichtenstein was in second heading into the final round and came through with 143.10 points on his quintuple back somersault tuck. He then waited for Gimeno, the final diver in the contest. Gimeno had led by 24.70 points heading into the final round, but he scored just 114.80 points on his armstand back 4 ½ somersaults.

Lichtenstein had performed that same armstand dive for 120.40 points in round five, the first of two rounds in Sunday’s final.

“Honestly, I could have done better. I wasn’t happy with my fifth round dive, but, you know, that’s the name of the game. Everyone hits and sometimes you miss,” Lichtenstein said. “It’s a new format. These guys, we’re all doing more dives than we’re used to, but you know, we all train accordingly.”

David Colturi finished eighth with 366.80 points for the United States, with Scott Lazeroff placing 11^th with 340.95 points.

Although Sunday marked the conclusion of high diving events at the World Aquatics Championships, diving events continue through August 3 in Singapore.