Two Early Medals for Canada in Bolzano
Bolzano Meet
Montréal, July 3, 2026 – Canada’s divers got off to a strong start at the Bolzano Meet in Italy on Friday, capturing two early medals, including a gold won by Margo Erlam and Mia Vallée in the women’s synchronized 3m springboard event.
The Canadian duo dominated the very first competition finals in Bolzano, where many of the world’s top diving nations have gathered for the weekend.
Their score of 281.37 propelled them to the top of the podium, ahead of Italians Chiara Pellacani and Elisa Pizzini (265.80) and Neutral Independent Athletes Viktoriia Frolova and Uliana Kliueva (262.20).
“It means a lot to us to have come in first. We’ve worked really hard on our synchronized diving over the past couple of weeks, doing almost all of our training together. I think today’s result really shows the potential we have as a team. We have good chemistry together and we’re very synchronized, so we just need to keep refining and perfecting our dives together,” said Quebec’s Mia Vallée, following the medals ceremony.
“It was truly a pleasure to dive with Margo again,” she added. “From an outsider’s perspective, our techniques may seem quite different, but we’re able to synchronize our dives very easily. And nowadays, we’re both more open to adapting to each other’s techniques than we were at first, which has made us even better as a team.”
In the same event, Sonya Palkhivala and Lila Stewart finished seventh with 243.27 points.
Just a few minutes later, Ontarians Katelyn Fung and Kate Miller secured a second medal for Canada, this one in the women’s synchronized 10m platform competition.
In a four-country battle that came down to the wire, Fung and Miller scored 276.96 points, a total that earned them the silver medal. Lois Toulson and Maisie Bond of Great Britain took top honours with 286.08 points, while Ellie Cole and Milly Puckeridge of Australia (262.56) rounded out the podium with bronze.
On the men’s side, Quebec’s Matt Cullen and Benjamin Tessier took part in the synchronized platform event, where their total score of 291.45 points was not quite enough to get them onto the podium. They thus finished fourth.
Zsombor-Murray heads to the finals
The qualifying and semi-final rounds of the men’s 3m springboard and women’s 10m platform events took place early Friday morning.
Of the competitors, one Canadian athlete secured a spot in Saturday’s finals: Nathan Zsombor-Murray, who dominated the men’s 3m semi-finals with a score of 423.50 points.
In the same competition, Tazman Abramowicz of Alberta finished 21st in the qualifiers and will not advance. Carson Paul of British Columbia was forced to withdraw from the event due to an injury. His situation will be reassessed on Saturday, ahead of the men’s synchronized 3m competition.
In the women’s 10m platform contest, Fung and Miller reached the semi-finals, but were not among their groups’ respective top three finishers who advanced to the finals. Miller finished fourth in her group, while Fung took the fifth spot in hers.
Lila Gokiert of Alberta had finished 11th in the preliminaries, but was unable to compete in the semi-finals due to the limit of two athletes per nation.
The Bolzano Meet will continue on Saturday. The day will begin with event qualifiers, after which Zsombor-Murray will attempt to secure a third medal for Canada.
