The tension was broken in La Rochelle, France, with all the athletes breathing a sigh of relief after completing the training session for the opening stage of the Red Bull Cliff Diving Series 2009 on May 8.
Until then, the top specialists on the planet in this elite sport had only had the chance to look around the impressive scenario set up in the heart of this historic French city. Just as in olden days, when it served to protect the populace, St. Nicholas’ Tower is once again the centre of everyone’s attention. The ramp from which all the action will “spring” was placed at a respectable height of 26.3 metres in a delicate operation which will not compromise the conservation of the monument as the structure is held up by a system of counter-weights which will protect the façade from harm. The athletes’ inevitable destination is the water, which bathes the tower, with a tide, which varies between 1.30 and 5.67 meters in height at this time of year. For this reason, training sessions and the competition have to keep to a tight schedule according to the maximum depth of the water.
Everything has been studied and tested to the limit. After accelerating for about three seconds and reaching almost 100 km/h, the water is like a wall when you hit it – and the entrance is one of the most demanding and critical moments of the whole dive. The water is always entered feet first and with maximum muscle tension. Only after that will the athletes feel the chilly waters of the Atlantic, the temperature of which at this time of year is about 16ºC. For the safety of everyone involved, three divers are permanently on duty during the whole event.
“One of the great things of the Red Bull Cliff Diving Series 2009 is that we will be diving from at least 26 meters which allows us to show more difficult dives. This height, however, forces the diver to show control. Usually, if you are a bit late with your movements you can cheat a little bit at the entry, but at 26 meters you have to have control over your dive. At 26 meters you have to be sure of what you do. Any meter you add you’re adding on the bottom and travelling at almost 100 km/h one meter is like nothing; however, the impact on the water is much bigger”, Orlando Duque, nine times World Champion, gives reasons for the importance of physical and mental preparation before going on an aesthetic three second flight.
However, it is not all about length and height; it is also a lot about precise execution of the dives. Each dive – three per competition – will be judged by five international jurors considering take off, position in the air and entry in the water; all within three minutes. Only an experienced eye can see the sometimes very slight differences in the divers’ performances. Niki Stajkovic, six times Olympic diver from Austria and the series’ sporting director, puts it in plain words: “Sometimes you do more difficult dives and get less points and sometimes you show less difficult dives and get a higher score.”
Perfect movements, full control of your body and many years of training and experience are some of the decisive factors when it comes to scores. To provide the total points for a dive, the highest and lowest score are discarded; the remaining three are added together and this sum is multiplied by each dive’s degree of difficulty. The diver with the highest overall score after three heats is the winner of the contest. Points will be awarded for 1st to 12th place. Winner of the Red Bull Cliff Diving Series 2009 will be the diver with the highest overall score from rankings after eight competitions.
“In the last few years we have seen divers pushing the limits of this sport. This year of course, there’s an added motivation to that as the Red Bull Cliff Diving Series is the best event we had in the whole history of this sport. The athletes are preparing even harder and are trying harder tricks and I am sure that the level is going to rise to a point which was unthinkable a few years ago. As everybody is preparing really well we’ll get to see a really high level of diving and a really high level of difficulty in the course of the event series”, explains Orlando Duque. Together with the reigning world champion Steve Black (AUS) and twelve of the world’s best high divers from nine different nations the 34-year-old Colombian will face the challenge of diving into water from great heights – cliff diving on the highest sportive level.
Coinciding with the national bank holiday of May 8th, which marks the end of World War II, La Rochelle and France will therefore enjoy a unique moment – with their first ever cliff diving competition.
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