European Aquatics Athlete of the Year Awards 2025: Ginni van Katwijk voted best women’s high diver

The Netherlands’ Ginni van Katwijk has been named the women’s high diving winner at the 2025 European Aquatics Athlete of the Year Awards, topping the public vote following a season that saw her consistently rank amongst the world’s best across the three major high diving fixtures.

Van Katwijk secured 34.75% of the total vote, emerging from a competitive shortlist that reflected a year of steady progress and growing depth for women’s high diving across the continent, with multiple women finishing inside the world’s top ten at any given opportunity.

The Dutch diver was Europe’s standout performer at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore last summer, where she produced a composed and confident series of dives to finish sixth overall, the best result among European athletes.

That was coupled with another sixth-place finish at the World Aquatics High Diving World Cup stop at Porto Flavia, with the 40-year-old coming in strong through the final stages to once again make her mark on a competitive field.

She also remained a consistent presence throughout the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series, holding her own in increasingly competitive and technically demanding events as the fixtures began to get tougher.

Second place in the voting went to Morgane Herculano of Switzerland, who claimed 25.28% after she made the most of what was a significant year for the US-based athlete.

Herculano finished 12th at the World Championships, finishing strongly through the rounds in a manner similar to Van Katwijk, and was a central figure at Porto Flavia, where she edged a close contest with the Dutchwoman to place fifth overall and the highest-finishing European, alongside a series of competitive performances in the Red Bull series.

Germany’s Iris Schmidbauer finished third with 20.35% of the vote. Her 15th-place finish in Singapore underlined the expanding footprint of European women’s high diving, while solid showings at the Red Bull events further demonstrated her ability to compete consistently at international level.

Fourth place went to Italy’s Elisa Cosetti, who earned 12.88% of the vote following another assured season at the elite level. Cosetti finished eighth at the World Championships, courtesy of a memorable final dive to secure the feat which helped her replicate her solid 2024 form, and remained a regular top-ten contender across the Red Bull series.

Completing the shortlist was France’s Madeleine Bayon with 6.67%. Bayon placed 14th at the World Championships in one of the deepest women’s fields in recent memory and continued to break new ground for French high diving by becoming the first French woman to compete in the Red Bull series.

Together, the shortlist captured a season that confirmed European women’s high diving as a discipline firmly on the rise, with van Katwijk’s victory providing a fitting reflection of a year which has seen women’s high diving go from strength to strength.

Stephen Stanley for European Aquatics

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