You
don't have to be crazy to do this
UNA MULLALLY
AS THE MIST gathered around a platform 27 metres above a section of
Grimstad’s island-dotted coast in southern Norway, the extremity of what was
being undertaken became clear.
Performing complicated dives, the competitors hit the water with a
gun-crack splash, trying to avoid massive jellyfish, and upon surfacing, they
give the safety scuba divers the okay sign. Landing on one’s chest or back can
cause serious injury, and then there are the more common forcible enemas that
can be a result of hitting the water at such velocity. It’s a sport that can
only be described as crazy – along with highly skilled – and next month, the
Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series is coming to Ireland.
On August 4th, 11 divers will come to Inis Mór to make use of the
remarkable setting of Poll na Péist, or as it’s known by its slightly more
dramatic modern English translation, the Serpent’s Lair. A blowhole rock
formation that has created an almost perfect rectangular pool lies below a
platform 28 metres above it that is idea for cliff diving. The event is open to
the public but ticketed and strictly limited to those who won tickets from a
draw on redbullcliffdiving.com. The Inis Mór stop is halfway through the series, after the Azores and
before Boston.
Remarkably, the divers don’t get a chance to practise their dives before
heading off to competitions. On the day before the dives are scored, they get a
few practice dives in, but outside of competition time, they practise in
fragments, only piecing the dives together on tour. Gary Hunt, who won the
Grimstad stage, is a relative newcomer to the sport but is the reigning Red
Bull Cliff Diving World Series champion, and is the executor of the sport’s
most difficult dive.
“We train mostly on the 10-metre platform, sometimes on the three-metre
springboard,” he explains shortly after his winning dive in Norway. “You just
cut the dive into parts and train each part; the take off, the somersaults and
twists, and then the entering. Then we put them together when we come to the
competitions.”
Hunt started cliff diving in 2006. He began his career as a swimmer,
switching to diving aged nine, but it was only when he was 22 that he got a
chance to dive higher than the 10-metre Olympic standard height.
Such is the rigour of their training – each section of the dive is
practised thousands of times – cliff divers’ bodies go into autopilot when each
somersault and twist is pieced together mid-air. “It’s pretty complicated, but
it’s all ingrained in muscle memory,” says Kent De Mond, a diver from San Diego
who took third place on the podium in Grimstad.
“If you practise something enough times, your muscles almost know how to
react and do that motion without even concentrating on it or thinking about it
. . . A lot of times, when you’re going, your body will take over because it
knows the feeling of the motion. I’m sure a really great guitarist doesn’t
think about where every finger is placed here and there while they’re playing,
they know what they’re playing and their fingers know what to do.”
It’s mentally exhausting, De Mond says, and as he stands in a white robe
waterside on a misty post-competition afternoon, he’s hoping that it’ll be
sunnier in Inis Mór. Aren’t we all.
Orlando Duque from Colombia is a modern-day hero within the sport, with
nine World Championship victories to his name. He’s also the guy who publicised
the upcoming Irish cliff diving trip by jumping out of a helicopter near
Ashford Castle into Lough Corrib. Duque has been to the Serpent’s Lair before
too, and describes it as a unique place to dive. “It’s probably my favourite
place for the season. I was there a few years ago and I think the location is
fantastic,” he says, after a day of practise dives in Grimstad.
The Inis Mór stop differs from other places along the tour. “I think the
main difference is that we’re going to be diving into a natural pool that’s
pretty small compared to when we’re diving into the open sea or a big lake. I
don’t think it’s going to bother anybody, but you just have to make some
adjustments, pick different reference points. There’s a difference in level
between the edge of the pool and the water so you have to be really aware that
you’re looking at the water and not at the edge, so just a couple of things you
have to make adjustments for. All the guys, I’m sure, will figure it out after
a couple of dives.”
Duque is just how you’d expect a cliff diver to be: tanned, toned,
relaxed, and with a mane of black hair that whips dramatically as he completes
his famous reverse twists from almost 30 metres above the water.
But what makes these divers do something that seems so unnatural? Duque
says they all need “a certain degree of maturity” because the consequences of
diving irresponsibly at that height are so huge. “Maybe a little bit of crazy
helps,” he adds, “because sometimes you know you’re prepared, but your head is
just telling you ‘no way, don’t do this, be careful, be careful’. You have to
just go over that and just do it.”
Hunt says he’s attracted to the adrenaline of the sport, but you
wouldn’t know it from his softly spoken and almost unreasonably calm demeanour.
“Part of the attraction is being able to do something that to people who
haven’t seen it before looks crazy but that is possible with lots of training, ”
he says. “The adrenaline rush attracts me. I’ve built up a love for the sport.
I love throwing myself around doing twists and somersaults and finding my feet
again.”
If the
weather holds up, seeing these athletes throw themselves into Inis Mór’s rock
pool should make for one of the most stunning sights on the World Series tour.
Either way, they’ll definitely be making a big, loud, scary splash
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