Two, three steps forward onto the ramp, the heart races, the feet feel the rim of the board, the eyes are closed. Dive! Two, three seconds of freefall until the hard hit on the water's surface. Three seconds of freefall combined with jaw-dropping acrobatics – that’s cliff diving!
With only three heats per competition, the athletes have to show all their skills by performing stylish as well as complex dives which have to be executed perfectly in order to impress the judges and to experience the 'unbelievable feeling of relief after a difficult but safe dive' in the words of Orlando Duque. The three most important criteria for divers and judges are the drop, the position in the air and the entry into the water. Each one counting for a third. To get a maximum score, the divers must not, for example, touch the platform during the dive or plunge into the water in a non vertical position.
The degree of difficulty of a dive is evaluated on the basis of these criteria: type of take-off, number of somersaults, number of twists, position during the somersaults and the type of entry into the water. Within the six different groups of dives, twists are marked the highest. However, only perfect dives get perfect scores. Only one diver has ever earned a perfect '10' from all the judges – Colombian Orlando Duque during the world championships in Hawaii some 10 years ago.
As a general rule, the higher the platform, the more difficult the dive. Although divers will have completed their movements after approximately 15 metres, the extra height gives them the chance to perform the dive even more exactly and prepare for a straight landing.
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