{"id":527,"date":"2026-08-09T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportpsychologycenter.com\/?p=527"},"modified":"2026-08-09T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T11:00:00","slug":"pellacani-sincronia-mentale-tuffi-europei-nuoto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sportpsychologycenter.com\/en\/2026\/08\/09\/pellacani-sincronia-mentale-tuffi-europei-nuoto\/","title":{"rendered":"Two bodies, one dive: the mental synchrony behind Chiara Pellacani's record"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five events, five golds. At the 2026 European Aquatics Championships in Paris, Chiara Pellacani closed a perfect Europeans in diving, surpassing the Italian all-time record of three golds held by Tania Cagnotto. She won two titles on her own, the other three in pairs \u2014 with three different partners in the same week. The science of interpersonal synchrony explains why building multiple \u201ctwo-body minds\u201d in a few days is a psychological challenge in its own right, distinct from individual performance.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author <\/strong>Virginia Marino<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Simbolo<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

01 \u2014 FIVE GOLDS, THREE DIFFERENT PARTNERS<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The record's composition that intrigues sport psychology<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five events, five golds. At the 2026 European Aquatics Championships in Paris, Chiara Pellacani closed a perfect Europeans in diving, surpassing the three gold medals that were the Italian all-time record, held by Tania Cagnotto. But what most intrigues those working in sport psychology isn't the number: it's the composition of that haul. Two golds she won on her own (1m and 3m individual springboard). The other three came in pairs \u2014 in the team event, in mixed synchro with Matteo Santoro, and finally in women's 3m synchro with Elisa Pizzini, at her first continental medal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a single week, Pellacani had to build and maintain several different \u201ctwo-body minds\u201d. It's a psychological load that the times on the scoreboard don't tell, but that the scientific literature on interpersonal synchrony allows us to read in depth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Event<\/th>Partner<\/th>Result<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
1m individual springboard<\/td>\u2014<\/td>Gold<\/td><\/tr>
3m individual springboard<\/td>\u2014<\/td>Gold<\/td><\/tr>
Team event<\/td>Team Italy<\/td>Gold<\/td><\/tr>
3m mixed synchro<\/td>Matteo Santoro<\/td>Gold<\/td><\/tr>
Women's 3m synchro<\/td>Elisa Pizzini<\/td>Gold<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

02 \u2014 WHAT IT MEANS TO SYNCHRONISE WITH ANOTHER BODY<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The science of interpersonal synchrony<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In psychology, interpersonal synchrony refers to the spontaneous or intentional coordination, over time, of movements, emotions, and even physiological activity between two or more people. It isn't just a journalistic metaphor: studies that simultaneously monitor heart rate, skin conductance, and brain activity in two people engaged in a shared task \u2014 using techniques known as hyperscanning, that is, the simultaneous recording of both partners' physiological signals \u2014 show that the two tend to align their internal states when collaborating toward a common goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In synchronised diving this isn't a cosmetic detail: it's the very object of the judging. Unlike individual events, where judges assess execution alone, synchro has a panel dedicated to synchronisation: of eleven judges in total, five score exclusively on how closely the two bodies overlap at every instant of the dive \u2014 take-off, approach, lift-off, rotations, water entry. A technically perfect dive that's slightly out of sync between the two athletes loses as many points as a dive with an execution error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In plain terms.<\/strong> Think of two people carrying a heavy table together through a narrow doorway, without speaking: they constantly exchange tiny signals \u2014 a slowing down, a slight turn of the wrist \u2014 and interpret them in real time to stay coordinated. Synchro divers do the same thing, but with margins of error measured in tenths of a second and under the eyes of a judging panel.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

03 \u2014 WHY CHANGING PARTNER THREE TIMES IN ONE WEEK IS A PSYCHOLOGICAL CHALLENGE<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The brain that has to recalibrate from scratch<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research published in 2025 in the journal Psychophysiology (Boukarras and colleagues) found that physiological synchrony between two people engaged in a shared action increases when the task is new, while it tends to decline as it becomes familiar and mutual attention relaxes \u2014 a \u201csocial monitoring\u201d mechanism that reactivates every time the conditions of the interaction change. The same study reports that social anxiety reduces this capacity for alignment, because it shifts the individual's attention onto themselves rather than onto their partner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translated into the language of diving: every time an athlete changes synchro partner, the system has to recalibrate from scratch. Underlying this process is what researchers call motor simulation of the other: the brain internally represents not only its own movements but also the movements the partner is about to make, and uses that representation to anticipate them. A series of studies (Novembre, Ticini, Sch\u00fctz-Bosbach, and Keller, 2012, published in Cerebral Cortex) showed, using transcranial magnetic stimulation on piano duos, that the quality of temporal coordination between two musicians depends precisely on how much each one internally encodes the other's movements \u2014 not just their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A useful parallel.<\/strong> It's the same reason why two pianists playing a duet together for the first time sound more \u201cjerky\u201d than two who have been performing it for months: the ability to anticipate the other's attack has to be built note by note. Pellacani did this three times in a few days \u2014 with an experienced partner like Santoro, and then with a partner making her absolute debut on the international stage.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

04 \u2014 A DETAIL THE JUDGING MANUALS KNOW WELL<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The sequential effect in judging pairs' dives<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There's a further layer, less known to the public, that makes the psychological pressure of synchro even more insidious. A study by Robin Kramer (University of York, published in Royal Society Open Science in 2017) on Olympic synchronised diving found a sequential effect in judging: the score awarded to a pair is affected, by contrast, by the performance of the pair that preceded them in the rotation. Pairs that follow a very high-scoring performance tend to be penalised in the implicit comparison judges make, unconsciously, from one event to the next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It's a useful reminder for those working with athletes in judged sports: perceived performance doesn't depend only on what the athlete does, but also on the evaluative context in which that performance is placed \u2014 a factor that can be prepared for mentally, but not controlled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

05 \u2014 WHAT THOSE WORKING WITH SPORTING PAIRS CAN TAKE TO THE GYM<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Four concrete directions for the work<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For sport psychologists and mental coaches who work with pair or small-team disciplines (synchro, figure skating, rowing, tennis doubles), this literature suggests a few concrete directions for the work:<\/p>\n\n\n\n