From the circus to 27-metre platform, high divers find their kicks in the sport

SINGAPORE – In the sport of high diving, where adrenaline junkies leap off eight-storey platforms while executing flips and spins, it is no surprise that some of its athletes hail from entertainment backgrounds.

Take British-born Frenchman Gary Hunt for example, a two-time former world champion in the sport, who played a Tarzan-like character at the Walygator Grand-Est – an amusement park in France – for several years before becoming a high diver.

To relax before a competition, Hunt is often seen juggling balls to “slow his mind”.

“You’re not really thinking what you are doing. It can almost feel like your brain is not controlling your hands,” he told The Guardian in 2023.

High diving is an extreme aquatics discipline in which athletes jump from platforms of 27 metres for men and 20 metres for women and execute acrobatic stunts during the dive. Athletes can reach speeds of up to 85kmh before hitting the water.

Unlike standard diving, high diving does not use springboards or platforms – of 3m and 10m – commonly seen in Olympic events. Instead, athletes dive from static platforms, often built over natural bodies of water or temporary structures.

Judges score each dive based on difficulty, execution and water entry.

Hunt is in Singapore for the World Aquatics Championships (WCH), where he will be competing alongside 22 other male participants and 16 female divers at Sentosa from July 24 to 27.

Four-time women’s world champion Rhiannan Iffland, who previously worked as an acrobatic trampoline and diving entertainer on cruise ships, will also be in town.

When asked about the transition from performer to diver, the Australian told The Straits Times in a Zoom interview: “A lot of people come from performing shows, a lot of people come from an elite diving background, some come from gymnastics... So it’s a real mixed bag. But I definitely think it helps to have been a performer.

“I know in the beginning of my career, it felt like you’re putting on a show. If you make the transition from show diving or entertainment diving to competition, it kind of feels similar.

“And when you do shows, I feel like you play around a lot more and you test your skills, and you really develop a lot of different skills. And one of those things is doing the dives and performing the dives somewhat under pressure, because in a show, people are watching you, and in a competition, also people are watching you.”

Iffland will be on the hunt for a record-extending fifth consecutive world championship gold when she takes to the platform at the Palawan Green.

Joining her is another former performer, Kaylea Arnett, who worked at the Cirque du Soleil. She was also part of the House of Dancing Water, a water-show performance in Macau, whose cast included high divers Carlos Gimeno, two-time world championship medallist Catalin-Petru Preda and Meili Carpenter – the trio are also competing in Singapore.

When competitive diving gets stressful for Arnett, performing “keeps things fun” for the American.

“It reminds me not to take it too seriously, because there was a time back in the day that competing took the fun out of diving for me. It was too much pressure. I wasn’t getting the results that I wanted, and it just became not fun any more,” she said in an interview with Native News Online in 2024.

“So, I found a way. Doing shows made diving really fun for me again because there was no pressure, and I learnt all these new skills. I’ve learnt how to take that with me into this new competition world.”