Cliff Diving
Gear up for the plunge: an essential guide to cliff diving equipment
Find out what kind of kit it takes to create a Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series stop and the teams behind the scenes that make it all happen.
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The Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series celebrated its 100th stop this season and will reach the milestone of 106 events at the sensational finale in Sydney, Australia, later this year. The World Series has showcased the world’s oldest extreme sport all around the globe in its 15-season history.
Here, take a look at what it takes to create a Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series stop in every kind of diving environment, from the wild, rugged cliffs of remote locations to striking urban skylines – and everything else in between.
01
Setting the scene: the diving platform
The scene is set: a diver poised with toes curling over the tip of the diving platform, framed against a stunning backdrop, and a hair-raising 21m or 27m plunge between platform and the water’s surface below, ready to execute a jaw-dropping set of complex manouevres in under three seconds as they fall at 85kph. It's an iconic scene repeated time and again throughout every round of every stop of the competition.
From time-to-time, the divers might take on a round of off-the-cliff diving from a natural spot, such as the rugged outcrop that loomed above Lake Vouliagmeni in Greece at the 2024 season opener, or jump from a specially selected spot like the famed Stari Most bridge in Mostar. These dives normally take place in the earlier rounds of diving, during the simpler required dives.
Carlos Gimeno prepares to dive direct from the cliff face in Greece
© Romina Amato/Red Bull Content Pool
But at every stop, as the competition rounds progress and the dives become more complex, diving is performed from the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series platform. So how exactly are the platforms constructed at each and every diving location?
The simple answer: it depends. The diving location completely determines the method of platform construction, with each diving tower customised to the local environment. In Mostar, for example, the team of riggers built a sturdy wooden construction and fitted it overnight to the protected bridge and surrounding buildings in the old town - job done. But in Oslo, where the dives take place on a platform jutting out from the Oslo Opera House roof, a crane is needed to lift and secure the 30m long platform in place.
In other more wild and remote locations such as the Azores, the riggers will build the diving platforms by hand, taking care to impact the natural environment as little as possible. Whatever the location, weeks and months of planning go into setting up the perfect, safe and spectacular diving spot at each competition.
In Boston the platforms are secured to the Institute of Contemporary Art
© Dean Treml/Red Bull Content Pool
The stunning Takachiho Gorge requires a completely different platform setup
© Romina Amato/Red Bull Content Pool
02
Diving kit
Swimsuits
As you'd imagine, the diving kit worn by each athlete in the competition is pretty simple. For the men, it's generally a pair of swim briefs and for the women, a one or two-piece swimsuit of their choice. As with any watersport, each athlete has their own preference for comfort and streamlining the body, especially when it comes to attempting the perfect rip entry.
Heart rate monitor
Many of the athletes can also be seen wearing a heart rate monitor, taped to one arm, which offers some truly adrenaline-pumping readings as they approach the platform edge, ready to swoop into the water below.
Cliff diving kit is minimal: swimsuit, flip flops and the 'shammy'
© Dean Treml/Red Bull Content Pool
Beach slippers
The divers can also be seen clutching beach slippers, which they wear to and from the diving location, and when scaling the diving tower. This helps to keep their feet dry, clean and in perfect condition before diving. You might catch a diver hurling their shoes into the water before diving - these are collected and returned with each dive.
The shammy
The 'shammy' or chamois cloth is another frequently used – and often-asked-about – piece of kit. Essentially a small absorbent towel, the chamois helps the divers to dry down just the right amount before each dive, enough to keep the skin slightly sticky to help with grip in those epic somersaults and dive positions. It might be a tiny piece of diving kit, but its importance shouldn’t be underrated - a slip on the platform or loss of grip during a dive could mean bad form and losing precious points and, in some cases, could even lead to a hard landing.
More from the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series
03
The safety crew
Watching the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series on Red Bull TV, you'll have probably spotted a team of safety divers in formation almost directly below the platform. You usually see them making quite a splash with their hands. These are the safety divers, the unsung heroes of the World Series who are in place at every single dive in every dive location.
The splashing (sometimes also created with a spray machine) allows the divers to easily see the water's surface, which can be reflective or glassy depending on the diving conditions. When the surface is easily in sight, the diver can make split-second calculations and adjustments to make that perfect entry.
The safety divers wait in place as Meili Carpenter dives in Athens
© Dean Treml/Red Bull Content Pool
The safety divers' other job is to spot and monitor the diving area, and generally keep the athletes safe as they perform each dive. The safety divers will plunge beneath the surface as soon as the athletes make contact with the water to ensure that the entry has been safe and successful. If a diver makes a hard entry or sustains an injury, the safety team are right there on hand to handle the situation.
The safety precautions aren't just in place during diving – there's months of preparation scoping diving spots and re-checking once the World Series arrives on site around a week before the competition kicks-off.
Hassan Mouti, Red Bull Cliff Diving Competition Director, explains: "Before the event, when we arrive on site we always send one or two scuba divers to do checks, because you never know if something has changed - if a rock has moved, or the sand has moved a bit. We also check if the sprays are working to create the white foam, to have a visual cue for the divers. If the spray isn’t an option, then the safety divers will be making the splashes. We also always check the direction of the current, so the safety divers can take up the right positions during the diving.
"It's a lot of elements that we put together to make sure the diver is set. We have a doctor on site, along with one or two boats and two or three ambulances on site as a precaution."
Each venue presents new challenges to the Red Bull Cliff Diving safety team
© Romina Amato/Red Bull Content Pool
It's a lot of elements that we put together to make sure the diver is safe
There's also the constant monitoring of wind conditions, to ensure diving conditions are safe - when you're perched and balanced 27m above the water, conditions need to be stable. Even a moderately strong gust can push a diver off course during those crucial three seconds of flight.
All of these elements are adapted to each site at every diving location on the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series calendar.
04
The physios
Behind the scenes, there's also a team of physiotherapists on hand to help keep the athletes in top condition during the competition season. With cliff divers facing huge forces up to 10G from hitting the water at speeds of up to 85kph, the repetitive impact on the body can take its toll.
During a competition, a treatment room is on site to help prepare divers during the morning before training, during the competition and then treatment after the competition ends.
"The most common injuries are adductor tears and also ankle injuries," explains Angi Passenbrunner, a Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series physiotherapist. "Ideally, the divers try to hit the water perfectly vertical, but even the slightest over rotation or under rotation can cause impact in different areas of the body. We have lower back pains from training because of too tight muscles, a lot of cervical spine injuries. If you lean over or come in too short, you get a big hit on the chin or the head, so whiplash also occurs very often.
The divers keep the permanent physio team busy at each stop
© Romina Amato/Red Bull Content Pool
"I also invented some taping techniques for cliff diving, because you won't find them in any book!" Passenbrunner says. The tape has to stay on and take the impact and forces of diving from 27m, so she's created her own special technique using a combination of tapes as well as gluing and knotting to be strong enough and flexible enough that the divers can perform at their peak.
It's not all about treating injuries, though. The physios also treat to help keep the athletes' mobilised and use their specialist knowledge to support them with specific training regimens and technique to support good health, muscle strength and joint stability. They can also advise on recovery for the two or three weeks between competitions.
05
The judges
With the best seat in the house, at every Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series, five judges are the last word on scoring each dive. Olivier Morneau-Ricard is a former diver and high diver who, like his fellow judges, went through a specialist dive judge certification to secure his spot on the judge rota.
A panel of five judges scores each diver's performance
© Dean Treml/Red Bull Content Pool
"When I sit on the chair, for me this isn’t game time, we have to be fair with every single diver," Morneau-Ricard states. "Obviously, we have a rulebook with hundreds of rules that we need to take into account, but in general the main thing we're trying to do is to be fair with all athletes. The ranking for us is the most important." He explains that on the day, the dives are compared to each other and judged purely on execution of the dive - there's no room for expectation.
The first divers out tend to dictate the range of scoring for the whole competition and, so, ultimately it's the ranking and not the score, that reflects how well a diver has performed over the course of a competition. In a panel with five judges, the highest and lowest scores are eliminated to give an average score, which is then multiplied by the degree of difficulty - the fairest final result for all.
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