Diving Trivia
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30 free Diving trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Competitive diving looks simple from the stands: climb, jump, splash. This quiz digs into everything underneath that: how a dive is scored out of ten, why the two highest and two lowest marks are thrown away, what a 5337D actually is, why the tuck position is the easiest, and how fast a diver from the 10-metre platform hits the water. It covers the sport's odd origins in Swedish gymnastics and Victorian plunging championships, its Olympic debut in 1904, the arrival of synchronised diving in 2000, and the high-diving world championships from 27 metres. The legends get their due too: Greg Louganis's double sweep and his head strike in Seoul, Pat McCormick and Fu Mingxia, Klaus Dibiasi's three straight platform golds, China's dominance since 1984, Guo Jingjing, Wu Minxia, Chen Ruolin, Quan Hongchan's perfect tens, Tom Daley's five medals and Matthew Mitcham's record dive in Beijing. About a third of the questions are easy for casual Olympic viewers, a third are medium, and the rest are for people who know their inward from their reverse. Every answer is verified against the sport's reference and biography pages, and each question carries its source.
All 30 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01As of 2025, which diver holds the record for Olympic diving medals, with eight?
Dmitri Sautin
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.
Q 02Acrobatic diving grew out of gymnasts in which two countries leaping into water?
Germany and Sweden
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.
Q 03Farid Simaika scored the most points in the 1928 Olympic platform final; why did Pete Desjardins get gold?
Most judges ranked him first
Most judges ranked him first: placings decided the event rather than total points, and the Egyptian anthem had already been played for Simaika.
Q 04After winning the first women's Olympic diving event in 1912, Greta Johansson emigrated to which country?
United States
United States: she married Ernst Brandsten, a fellow diver from the 1912 Games, and both went on to train divers at Stanford.
Q 05When seven judges score an individual Olympic dive, what happens to the two highest and two lowest marks?
They are cancelled
They are cancelled: only the middle three marks are added up, so one outlying judge cannot sway the result.
Q 06What score does a diver receive for performing a dive with a different number from the one announced?
Zero
Zero: the referee declares it a failed dive, and a diver can't change the dive sheet once its deadline has passed.
Q 07The score for a dive is multiplied by a factor known as what?
Degree of difficulty
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.
Q 08In which dive group does the diver take off facing forward and rotate backward?
Reverse
Inward is the mirror image: taking off with the back to the water and rotating forward, towards the board.
Q 09Which body position in flight is rated the hardest of the four?
Straight
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.
Q 10In the dive number 305C, what does the third digit represent?
How many half-somersaults it has
305C is a reverse two-and-a-half somersault in the tuck position: group 3, no flying element, five half-somersaults.
Q 11Which dive group is performed only from the platform, never the springboard?
Armstand
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.
Q 12Roughly how fast is a diver travelling on hitting the water from the 10-metre platform?
About 50 km/h
About 50 km/h: at that speed a botched entry can cause concussion or bruise a diver's lungs.
Q 13Which body, formerly known as FINA, governs diving worldwide?
World Aquatics
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.
Q 21Chen Ruolin, a five-time Olympic champion, coached which platform star to two golds at Paris 2024?
Quan Hongchan
Quan Hongchan: she has said that earning money for her mother's medical treatment is a big motivation.
Q 22Which phrase was coined for the rip entries of the 2020 and 2024 women's Olympic platform champion?
Water splash disappearance technique
Water splash disappearance technique: in Paris she opened the platform final with a dive that drew 10s from every judge.
Q 23With whom did Tom Daley win Olympic gold in the synchronised 10 m platform at the 2020 Games?
Matty Lee
Q 14Greg Louganis was favourite for two golds at the 1980 Moscow Olympics; what kept him out?
A boycott
A boycott: his country stayed away from Moscow, and he went on to sweep springboard and platform at both 1984 and 1988.
Q 15What happened to Louganis in the 1988 Olympic preliminaries?
He hit his head on the springboard
He hit his head on the springboard: after stitches from the team doctor, he completed the preliminaries and went on to win gold.
Q 16Before the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Greg Louganis received what diagnosis, which he kept private for years?
HIV
HIV: despite the diagnosis, he still won both the springboard and platform golds in Seoul.
Q 17Who coached Italy's three-time Olympic platform champion Klaus Dibiasi?
His father
His father: Carlo Dibiasi, a 1936 Olympic diver, trained him, and Klaus later went on to coach the Italian diving team himself.
Q 18At Rio 2016, which country's divers won the only Olympic diving gold that China failed to take?
Britain
Britain: Jack Laugher and Chris Mears won the men's 3 m synchro, seven years after a spleen crisis nearly killed Mears.
Q 19Which Chinese diver retired after Atlanta 1996, aged 18, then came back to win Olympic gold at Sydney 2000?
Fu Mingxia
Fu Mingxia: she had swept springboard and platform in Atlanta before quitting, and her Sydney comeback gold came on the springboard.
Q 20Why was Tom Daley granted a re-dive in the London 2012 Olympic platform final?
Camera flashes put him off
Camera flashes put him off: after scoring 75.60, he nailed the retake for 91.80 and went on to win bronze.
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.
Q 24Tom Daley served as a mentor on which 2013 ITV celebrity diving show?
Splash
Splash: its debut won its Saturday-evening slot, and ITV brought it back for a second series.
Q 25Australia's Matthew Mitcham, the 2008 Olympic platform champion, originally competed in which sport?
Trampolining
Trampolining: his near-perfect final dive in Beijing overturned Zhou Luxin's lead and stopped China from sweeping every diving gold.
Q 26Local divers traditionally leap from the Old Bridge, a rebuilt Ottoman landmark, in which Bosnian city?
Mostar
Mostar: the bridge was destroyed during the Bosnian War in 1993, and divers leapt from it again once its replica opened in 2004.
Q 27The famous La Quebrada cliff divers perform daily shows in which Mexican resort city?
Acapulco
Acapulco: each diver times the leap to an incoming wave, which deepens the narrow inlet and cushions the landing.
Q 28Which two-time Olympic champion spotted the young Greg Louganis and became his coach?
Sammy Lee
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.
Q 29Italy's three-time Olympic platform champion Klaus Dibiasi was born in which country?
Austria
Austria: he was born in Solbad Hall, now Hall in Tirol, to Italian parents who moved back to Italy when he was a child.
Q 30Which East German diver won both springboard and platform gold at the 1960 Rome Olympics?
Ingrid Krämer
Ingrid Krämer: after retiring she became a successful East German diving coach, but lost her job after reunification and worked as a bank clerk.