30 Fun Facts About Diving

As of 2025, which diver holds the record for Olympic diving medals, with eight?

Dmitri Sautin: when the Olympic programme doubled to eight events in 2000, he entered all four men's events and won a medal in each.

Acrobatic diving grew out of gymnasts in which two countries leaping into water?

Germany and Sweden: gymnasts there had dived into water since the early 1800s, because the soft landing let them try bolder feats in the air.

Farid Simaika scored the most points in the 1928 Olympic platform final; why did Pete Desjardins get gold?

Most judges ranked him first: placings decided the event rather than total points, and the Egyptian anthem had already been played for Simaika.

After winning the first women's Olympic diving event in 1912, Greta Johansson emigrated to which country?

United States: she married Ernst Brandsten, a fellow diver from the 1912 Games, and both went on to train divers at Stanford.

When seven judges score an individual Olympic dive, what happens to the two highest and two lowest marks?

They are cancelled: only the middle three marks are added up, so one outlying judge cannot sway the result.

What score does a diver receive for performing a dive with a different number from the one announced?

Zero: the referee declares it a failed dive, and a diver can't change the dive sheet once its deadline has passed.

The score for a dive is multiplied by a factor known as what?

Degree of difficulty: it is worked out by a formula from a dive's somersaults, twists, group and height, so divers are free to submit brand-new dives.

In which dive group does the diver take off facing forward and rotate backward?

Inward is the mirror image: taking off with the back to the water and rotating forward, towards the board.

Which body position in flight is rated the hardest of the four?

Straight is rated hardest because of the risk of over-rotation, even though many divers find it the easiest to hold in a simple dive.

In the dive number 305C, what does the third digit represent?

305C is a reverse two-and-a-half somersault in the tuck position: group 3, no flying element, five half-somersaults.

Which dive group is performed only from the platform, never the springboard?

Armstand dives, group six, begin from a handstand on the edge of the platform; springboard events use only groups one to five, so the armstand group is never contested on a board.

Roughly how fast is a diver travelling on hitting the water from the 10-metre platform?

About 50 km/h: at that speed a botched entry can cause concussion or bruise a diver's lungs.

Which body, formerly known as FINA, governs diving worldwide?

World Aquatics: its high diving events have run at world championships since 2013, but efforts to add them to the Olympics had failed as of 2024.

Greg Louganis was favourite for two golds at the 1980 Moscow Olympics; what kept him out?

A boycott: his country stayed away from Moscow, and he went on to sweep springboard and platform at both 1984 and 1988.

What happened to Louganis in the 1988 Olympic preliminaries?

He hit his head on the springboard: after stitches from the team doctor, he completed the preliminaries and went on to win gold.

Before the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Greg Louganis received what diagnosis, which he kept private for years?

HIV: despite the diagnosis, he still won both the springboard and platform golds in Seoul.

Who coached Italy's three-time Olympic platform champion Klaus Dibiasi?

His father: Carlo Dibiasi, a 1936 Olympic diver, trained him, and Klaus later went on to coach the Italian diving team himself.

At Rio 2016, which country's divers won the only Olympic diving gold that China failed to take?

Britain: Jack Laugher and Chris Mears won the men's 3 m synchro, seven years after a spleen crisis nearly killed Mears.

Which Chinese diver retired after Atlanta 1996, aged 18, then came back to win Olympic gold at Sydney 2000?

Fu Mingxia: she had swept springboard and platform in Atlanta before quitting, and her Sydney comeback gold came on the springboard.

Why was Tom Daley granted a re-dive in the London 2012 Olympic platform final?

Camera flashes put him off: after scoring 75.60, he nailed the retake for 91.80 and went on to win bronze.

Chen Ruolin, a five-time Olympic champion, coached which platform star to two golds at Paris 2024?

Quan Hongchan: she has said that earning money for her mother's medical treatment is a big motivation.

Which phrase was coined for the rip entries of the 2020 and 2024 women's Olympic platform champion?

Water splash disappearance technique: in Paris she opened the platform final with a dive that drew 10s from every judge.

With whom did Tom Daley win Olympic gold in the synchronised 10 m platform at the 2020 Games?

Matty Lee: the pair held a slender lead into the last dive and edged out China's Cao Yuan and Chen Aisen for Daley's first Olympic gold.

Tom Daley served as a mentor on which 2013 ITV celebrity diving show?

Splash: its debut won its Saturday-evening slot, and ITV brought it back for a second series.

Australia's Matthew Mitcham, the 2008 Olympic platform champion, originally competed in which sport?

Trampolining: his near-perfect final dive in Beijing overturned Zhou Luxin's lead and stopped China from sweeping every diving gold.

Local divers traditionally leap from the Old Bridge, a rebuilt Ottoman landmark, in which Bosnian city?

Mostar: the bridge was destroyed during the Bosnian War in 1993, and divers leapt from it again once its replica opened in 2004.

The famous La Quebrada cliff divers perform daily shows in which Mexican resort city?

Acapulco: each diver times the leap to an incoming wave, which deepens the narrow inlet and cushions the landing.

Which two-time Olympic champion spotted the young Greg Louganis and became his coach?

Sammy Lee: as a non-white diver he could use his local pool only one day a week, and he later coached Louganis to Olympic silver at 16.

Italy's three-time Olympic platform champion Klaus Dibiasi was born in which country?

Austria: he was born in Solbad Hall, now Hall in Tirol, to Italian parents who moved back to Italy when he was a child.

Which East German diver won both springboard and platform gold at the 1960 Rome Olympics?

Ingrid Krämer: after retiring she became a successful East German diving coach, but lost her job after reunification and worked as a bank clerk.