Be it motor sports, football or base jumping - every discipline has its hero. Orlando Duque is the man who epitomises high diving and sets the standard for anyone who aspires to mastery in cliff diving. Having outgrown the swimming pools, he began a career that has thus far earned him nine world championship titles and eternalized him in a film – however, he never actually spends more than three consecutive seconds “in flight."
Asked about his profession Orlando Duque would never describe it as “work”. And how could he? Especially when you consider that his work clothes are bathing suits and his workplaces are at unique venues in spectacular landscapes directly beside deep water. This 34-year-old athlete explains, “That’s part of the reason why I became a cliff diver. You always travel to breathtaking cliffs and precipices, which you perceive in a very special way when you dive from them.”
With acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h in just three seconds, there’s not much time to admire the scenery during a dive. “When I’m standing on the platform moments before a dive, they could be playing my favorite music at earsplitting volume and I wouldn’t even hear it,” Orlando says about the extreme concentration that precedes each leap. He then goes on to assure us that he’s not crazy. He simply felt that he needed a change of pace after having spent a decade leaping from lofty artificial platforms into pools of chlorinated water. “I started high diving when I was 20 years old. Jumping into a pool gradually became monotonous, and cliff diving was the logical next step.” It was preceded, however, by the unfulfilled dream of participating in the 1992 Olympics.
The national Olympic committee had set strict limits and everyone was eagerly looking forward to the upcoming games, but shortly before the trip to Spain was scheduled to begin, the national officials informed him that they had no places available for high divers. Orlando’s dream popped like a soap bubble, and that put an end to his desire to jump into the chlorinated “puddles” of artificial swimming pools.
Orlando grew up in Cali, a city of four million people in the heart of Colombia. He was just ten years old when he first leapt from a three-meter-high board: “After soccer practice, I would regularly go to watch the divers. One day the diving coach asked me if I’d like to give it a try. I wasn’t sure I’d be a strong enough swimmer to reach the edge of the pool after my jump, but I said ‘yes’ anyway”. Orlando didn’t stay at that height very long. Jumps from three-meter-high boards were followed by dives from seven- and ten-meter-tall towers. His first cliff dive was part of a local show at home in Cali in 1995. It seemed as like the most natural thing in the world for this ambitious cliff diver to accept summer jobs in 1997, 1998 and 1999 as a diver at Safaripark Gänserndorf, just outside the gates of Vienna. “They had me dive from a 25-meter-tall crane into a pool which, when viewed from that height, looked about as big as an ashtray,” the Colombian extreme athlete recalls.
Orlando now lives in Laie, 40 minutes from Honolulu. He’s married to a Hawaiian woman. He likes to spend his rare time at home reading on the beach or bodysurfing, but most of the year, he can be found high atop one or another of the world’s most spectacular cliffs. What impels him to leap from a height comparable to that of the roof of a ten-storey building? “The best explanation is the feeling of tension before the dive and the relief afterwards, when you resurface alive and well. We challenge our limits – and sometimes we go a bit beyond them”. The highest dive in his career was filmed in “9Dives” – a leap from a 34-meter-high cliff. “There’s a gigantic difference between 26 and 34 meters. The pool looks as small as a pinhead, and the water is as hard as concrete. The slightest error and … no, it’s better not even to think about it”.
This mighty leap, as well as his “perfect 10” dive at the world championships in 2000 (which, incidentally, is mentioned in the Guinness Book of World Records), are the personal career highlights of this nine-time world championship victor. “Seven judges each awarded me the highest score – an incredible feeling!” And feelings are very important in high diving. The height of the platform and the force of the impact with the water make perfect physical awareness absolutely essential. “I know exactly if and when I can jump. The moment you stop being afraid, you begin to live dangerously”.
Unease and tension are words that have no place in Orlando Duque’s vocabulary – except, of course, when a dive is imminent. His pulse rate begins to accelerate about 15 minutes before the jump. To prevent fatal errors, one minute before the leap he focuses undivided attention on the upcoming plunge. He takes the elastic band out of his hair, closes his eyes, and prepares to spend three seconds of eternity poised in midair, aware of nothing but the ecstasy of speed, immersion, deceleration, resurfacing – and then breathing a deep sigh of relief.
| 1974 | Born in Cali, Colombia |
| 1982 | First leapt from a three-meter-high board |
| 1994 | Start high diving |
| 1995 | First cliff diving show |
| 1997-1999 | Summer jobs diving from 25 meters in Safaripark Gänserndorf, AUT |
| 2005 | Winner Adriatic High Diving Cup |
| 2005 | Winner Red Bull Cliff Diving, Wolfgangsee |
| 2005 | Highest dive in his career from 34 meters in the movie 9Dives |
| 2006 | 3rd Cliff Diving World Championship |
| 2006 | 3rd Mediterranean Cup |
| 2008 | Winner Red Bull Cliff Diving, Wolfgangsee |
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