Italian diving star Matteo Santoro has responded to speculation about his relationship with synchronised diving partner Stefano Belotti, confirming that the teammates are not dating.
Online interest in the pair grew after they delivered a dramatic bronze-medal performance at the 2026 European Aquatics Championships in Paris.
Competing in the men’s synchronised three-metre springboard final on Monday, 3 August, Santoro and Belotti entered the last round in fifth place.
The Italian pair saved their best performance for the final dive, scoring 80.58 points to finish with a total of 386.07. That was enough to overtake British Olympic medallists Jack Laugher and Anthony Harding by just 0.48 points and claim bronze.
“I’ve had many times where I’ve put everything down to the last dive, and it’s even better to take the bronze medal in this way,” Santoro said after the event.
Reflecting on his partnership with Belotti, he added: “We had a lot of fun during the competition and diving together in general.”
Belotti, 22, has developed a substantial social-media following and has competed alongside Santoro for several years. The pair previously won gold together in the men’s synchronised three-metre springboard event at the 2022 World Junior Diving Championships.
Their close friendship and clear chemistry at the pool prompted fans to speculate that their partnership might extend beyond the diving board.
The online conversation became loud enough for Santoro to address it directly through Italian LGBTQ+ publication Gay.it.
“I want to point out that we are not a couple in real life,” Santoro said, according to the outlet.
Santoro’s personal life attracts growing attention
Interest in Santoro’s relationships follows his emergence as one of international diving’s most prominent openly gay young athletes.
In July 2025, Spanish diver Max Liñan marked his first anniversary with Santoro in an Instagram post. Liñan later confirmed to Outsports that the two athletes were gay and in a relationship.
The anniversary post has since been removed, and neither athlete is publicly known to have confirmed whether they remain together. Santoro’s current relationship status is therefore unclear.
That uncertainty appears to have contributed to the speculation surrounding Belotti, although Santoro’s statement makes clear that the Italian teammates’ partnership is sporting rather than romantic.
Three medals in Paris
The bronze with Belotti added another success to Santoro’s rapidly growing medal collection.
Earlier in the Paris championships, he joined Chiara Pellacani to win the mixed three-metre synchronised springboard title.
The reigning world champions controlled the event from beginning to end, winning all five rounds and finishing almost 20 points ahead of the silver medallists.
Santoro and Pellacani have competed together internationally for six years and describe their relationship as being like that of siblings.
“I had so much fun with Chiara it was magical. We are like brother and sister, we have known each other since I was four she was eight,” Santoro said after their European victory.
He also collected gold as part of Italy’s mixed team, giving him two gold medals and one bronze from the championships.
His partnership with Pellacani produced the biggest achievement of his senior career at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, where they won the mixed three-metre synchro title.
The result made Santoro a senior world champion and delivered Italy’s first world diving gold medal since 2015.
A rising international star
Santoro has enjoyed remarkable success at both junior and senior levels.
At the 2022 World Junior Diving Championships in Montreal, he won three gold medals, including the individual one-metre and three-metre springboard titles and the synchronised three-metre event with Belotti.
His senior World Aquatics medal record includes one world title, two world silver medals and one world bronze, alongside medals on the Diving World Cup and Grand Prix circuits.
The 19-year-old moved to the United States in 2025 to study and train with the University of Miami’s Hurricanes swimming and diving programme, where Pellacani was already based.
In March 2026, during his first appearance at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships, Santoro finished second in the one-metre springboard event and earned All-America honours.
His long-term goal is to represent Italy at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028.
As Santoro’s sporting profile grows, so too does interest in his life away from competition. His response to the Belotti rumours demonstrates a willingness to address that attention directly while drawing a clear boundary between his professional partnerships and personal relationships.
For one of diving’s fastest-rising young champions, taking control of that narrative may prove almost as important as maintaining control in the air.
