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Singapore 2025: Three closing-day gold help Italy finish on top again

The Azzurri top the overall medal table thanks to the efforts of their stars Simone Barlaam, Monica Boggioni and Gabriele Lorenzo on the final day as they finish on 46 medals, including 18 golds ahead of USA (18) and China (17). Turkiye’s Defne Kurt finishes off an impressive first Worlds with five gold, Czechia’s 17-year-old David Kratochvil made it a memorable Worlds with podium in all seven events he competed, and Great Britain's Poppy Maskill claims her third world title on final day in Singapore. 27 Sep 2025
A swimmer in action
Italy’s 19-year-old Gabriele Lorenzo claimed the men’s 100m freestyle S3 gold with a championship record time, winning his fourth medal in Singapore.
ⒸYong Teck Lim / Getty Images
By AMP Media | For World Para Swimming

Italy won the overall medal table of the Toyota World Para Swimming Championships Singapore 2025, thanks to three triumphs on the last day of action at the OCBC Aquatic Centre on Saturday.

The victories by Simone Barlaam, Monica Boggioni and Gabriele Lorenzo brought the European Para swimming powerhouse to a total of 46 medals, including 18 golds.

“I feel good, I was hoping to go a little bit; but it is the last day of this long competition, so it is great to finish on a gold medal,” said Barlaam, 25, who won the men’s 50m freestyle S9 final to bag his fourth gold medal at Singapore 2025.

The world record-holder and Paralympic champion had been the man to beat in the event in which he has four world titles to his name, but 18-year-old Oliwier Krzyszkowski from Poland gave him a run for the money. 

In the end, however, Barlaam opened almost a body-length gap and could claim his 23rd world title 0.67 of a second ahead of the Polish teenager, who had to settle for a silver. Fredrik Solberg finished third to earn Norway’s first medal of the championships.

“It’s great to see so many youngsters coming up. Oliwier, the Polish guy, went superfast and it was a good push for me,” Barlaam said.

“Tommaso Wulzer, the Italian, was also sixth in the world, in his second world championships final. It’s great to see that the legacy of what we’re doing is leaving some real marks.”

It is the fourth world championship in a row that the Azzurri won, but it was far from an easy victory as the United States in second place equalled their gold medal tally but only won a total of 35 medals.

When Leanne Smith (USA) won the women’s 100m freestyle S3 final – making it three gold medals and two silvers in Singapore for the 37-year-old – United States had taken over the lead of the overall standings with four events left in the championships.

Then Italy’s 19-year-old Gabriele Lorenzo claimed the victory in the men’s 100m freestyle S3 final with a championship record time, bringing his country back to the top thanks to more medals than their opponents.

It was Lorenzo’s fourth medal in Singapore, having won the men’s 200m freestyle S3, finished second in the 50m freestyle S3 and third in the 150m individual medley SM3.

 

Third place for China 

China, who had led the medal table over the past few days, had to settle for a third place with a total of 33 podium finishes including 17 victories.

“The competition was great. Singapore did an amazing job in organising these first Asian World Championships,” Barlaam said.

“It’s been a long season for us – especially after the one of Paris (2024 Paralympic Games), which was very long as well, and I’m happy that I could perform so well and also do some personal best in this event. The year, after the Paralympics, is not that easy so it is great to see these kinds of results. It means that the hard work paid off.”

Boggioni had started off her Singapore 2025 campaign with two victories in the first day of competition and ended it on top of the podium winning the women’s 100m freestyle S5 title on Saturday. 

The 27-year-old won four gold medals and a silver in Singapore as all three freestyle S5 events – 50m, 100m and 200m – had the same medallists: Czechia’s Agata Koupilova in second place and Natalie Ornkvist of Finland in third.

In her last race of the championships, Boggioni’s black cap set off at a high pace to take the lead after 25m and turn at the halfway mark 2.49 seconds before Koupilova. In the second half of the race, Boggioni continued to increase her lead and bagged her 11th world title by a margin of 4.91 seconds.

Five gold medals for Kurt

Turkiye’s Defne Kurt finished off an impressive first World Championships campaign with a fifth gold medal as she won the women’s 100m backstroke S10. The 24-year-old leaves Singapore with gold medals in every event she has taken part in, but her last final was a narrow one. 

After taking an early lead, the sprint expert had got herself a gap of more than half a second down to Canada’s Katie Cosgriffe in second place at the half-way mark. But the second half of the race was less explosive as Cosgriffe and Hungary’s Paralympic champion Bianka Pap got closer. Defne managed to hold back and won in 1:06.95, 0.42 seconds before silver medallist Cosgriffe as Pap, nine tenths of a second behind the winner, clinched bronze.

“I’m feeling really happy about my results,” the world championship debutant Kurt said.

“It’s great to be here and to be back swimming again. I was a swimmer before but two years ago I had a car accident, and my spinal cord broke, my small intestine got torn and I nearly died. But I’m standing on my legs and I’m glad to be here.”

 

No. 3 for Maskill

Ukraine finished fourth in the medal standings on 49 medals including 16 gold medals, Great Britain in fifth place on 15 golds. Poppy Maskill claimed her third world title in Singapore as she added a women’s 100m butterfly S14 triumph to her wins in 100m backstroke S14 and 200m freestyle S14. 

The 20-year-old finished in 1:02.58 to knock 16 hundredths of a second off her own world record, beating teammate Olivia Newman-Baronius by 0.17 of a second as Neutral Paralympic Athlete Valeriia Shabalina claimed bronze.

“I’m happy with that. I didn’t expect to get a PB so to get the world record again is amazing, it is just unreal,” Maskill said.

“I’ve done a really good job considering that it is the first year back after Paris (2024), so I’m really, really happy with my performance.”

Aiming to remain the best in the world into the Los Angeles 2028 Paralympic Games, Maskill will now “just go back and work on the little things that I need to improve”.

“I’ve got a new coach, Nick (Thompson), so hopefully he can spot all the new things that I need to work on and then I’ll come back for more,” she said.

Brazil finished sixth in the medal table, Mariana Ribeiro earning the South Americans their 13th and last gold medal of the championships after an impressive finish of the women’s 50m freestyle S9 final. With 10m left to swim, Alexa Leary of Australia had been in the lead, but Ribeiro managed to push past her in the last two strokes.

 

An unforgettable event

Singapore 2025 will also be an event for Czechia’s David Kratochvil to remember. The 17-year-old made it to the podium in all seven events he took part in, bagging four gold medals, a silver and two bronzes. 

On Saturday, he won the men’s 400m freestyle S11 final in 4:19.83 to beat a world record that has stood since the Barcelona 1992 Paralympic Games – 33 years ago and 16 years before David Kratochvil was born. 

Silver medallist Tomita Uchu from Japan and Portugal’s bronze medallist Marco Meneses finished more than 17 seconds behind the winner, who was racing against the clock after setting a Championship Record in the heats.

 

Aussies finish with a bang

In the last event of the 2025 World Championships, Australia made sure to go out with a bang as they crushed the mixed 4x100m freestyle relay 34pts world record in the final.

Bringing home a ninth gold medal for their country in seventh place in the overall medal table, a team of individual freestyle gold medallists Alexa Leary, Rowan Crothers and Callum Simpson, and Chloe Osborn, with two freestyle silvers, finished in 3:58.40, knocking 3.14 seconds off the previous mark set by Italy at Paris 2024. 

China took silver, 7.73 seconds behind, and France settled for bronze.

“Finishing off the championships with a world record and a gold medal is amazing,” said Crothers, who won the 50m and 100m freestyle S10 in Singapore.

“But what I love more than any of that is just the incredible exposure that we get as athletes with disability on the world stage, doing the thing that we love the most.”

Swimmers from China, Colombia, Israel, Spain, Netherlands and Ukraine, as well as Neutral Para swimmers Andrei Kalina, Daria Lukianenko and Igor Shchitkovskii, also won gold medals on the seventh day of action in the OCBC Aquatic Centre as Singapore 2025 came to a close.

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