Red Bull Cliff Diving entered a new era of competition on Saturday, with Ukrainian Slava Polyeshchuk taking pole position after the first round of dives prior to Sunday's final in Mexico.
For the first time, the divers had to perform their first required dive the day before the final competition, with the scores from round one on Saturday counting towards their final result on Sunday.
All 12 divers, including Mexican wildcard Jonatan Paredes, performed dives with a fixed degree of difficulty of 3.6, which nevertheless produced some unpredictable results. Title challengers Gary Hunt and Orlando Duque were ranked fifth and sixth respectively, while Mexican Jorge Ferzuli ended the day in last place after missing his first dive.
With four rounds of dives taking place over two days, the new competition format will require extra concentration from the athletes and 2011 World Series leader Orlando Duque believes the change represents a challenge.
He said: “I like this new system of doing one dive before and then the three dives the day after. I think it will take its toll on the divers. It is a lot of diving, we’re doing much more practice than before so we’re all going to feel it physically.
“Mentally, it changes your game because before, when you're practicing, you’re trying to make adjustments, but now you’re in competition. You’re focused for competition and then you have to reset and go and practice and then refocus again for competition.
“Consistency is going to play an even bigger part this year because you have to dive well both days. It’s going to be interesting.”
Scores after Round One
1. Slava Polyeshchuk | UKR | 91.80pts
2. Cyrille Oumedjkane | FRA | 86.40pts
3. Steven Lobue | USA | 84.60pts
4. Michal Navratil | CZE | 82.80pts
5. Gary Hunt | GBR | 81.00pts
6. Orlando Duque | COL | 81.00pts
7. Oleksandr Kutsenko | UKR | 77.40pts
8. Hassan Mouti | FRA | 75.60pts
9. Alain Kohl | LUX | 75.60pts
10. Kent De Mond | USA | 72.00pts
11. Jonatan Paredes (Wildcard) | MEX | 70.20pts
12. Jorge Ferzuli | MEX | 59.40pts
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