Twelve men, eight challenging competitions and 26 meters between takeoff and dive. Physical mastery, pure aesthetic, deathly silence and crackling tension – that’s the formula the new Red Bull Cliff Diving Series 2009 is made of. Between May and September the world’s best divers will level up the sport and compete in eight different countries at impressive locations for the overall series’ title.
Having its origin on the island of Maui back in the 18th century, this extreme sport is nowadays performed all over the world and famous for well trained athletes performing aesthetic moves from breathtaking heights and picturesque rocks. Only the very best will be able to be part of the unique Red Bull Cliff Diving Series 2009. Never before have divers jumped from 26 meter cliffs in eight consecutive competitions – this series and its protagonists will set a real standard for what cliff diving is about and push the limits of this sport.
“Perfect control of body and mind are absolutely essential because of the extreme height of the takeoff and the tremendous force of the impact, which is nine times stronger than when we dive from a ten-meter tower”, explains Orlando Duque, nine fold cliff diving world champion, “gravity makes us accelerate from zero to 100km/h in three seconds and the water brings us back to zero within four meters”. He is one of a limited number of top divers whose physical constitution and acrobatic ability allows performing the sport on that top level. Divers from nine different nations – among them world and national champions, world cup winners and record holders – as far as Australia (Steve Black) and the United States (Kent De Mond), Colombia (Orlando Duque, Eber Pava), Russia (Artem Silchenko), Ukraine (AndreY Ignatenko, Vyacheslav Polyeshchuk), Luxembourg (Alain Kohl), UK (Gary Hunt), France (Hassan Mouti; Cyrille Oumedjkane) and Czech Republic (Michal Navratil) – will participate in the forthcoming series and fight for being the number one.
Famous and well known diving spots as well as extraordinary natural and challenging urban venues have been selected as locations. Starting on the 8th of May in La Rochelle (FRA), the series will cross the Netherlands (Rotterdam), Croatia (Dubrovnik), Italy (Polignano a Mare), Turkey (Antalya), Germany and Switzerland (Sisikon) before reaching Greece (Athens) for the finals on the 20th of September.
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