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Top Ten facts about Cliff Diving7 Jawdroppingpictures From the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series OInterrlvaiewnwditoh Duque “My mind is concentrat- ing on a good take off, because I know if I have a “good take of, I know I’m going to have a good dive.

Interview » 3 5Orlando Duque 97 Jawdropping picturesHigh achiever interveiw:Cliff diver Blake Aldridge drops inWorld series dates 11 14Top Ten facts aboutCliff Diving



Interview »Orlando DuqueThe world`s best cliff diver Orlando Duque was in What would you be today if not theHamburg, Germany to promote the Red Bull Cliff world’s best cliff diver?Diving Series 2009. FUNSPORTING chief editorSascha Jurek met him for an interview. I was studying to be an engineer, but I don’t think I would have finished that. Later I wanted to be a cop or a firefighter, so maybe one of those two. But the choice I made, to become a cliff diver, was right. I used to be a very good pool diver, but I had that little chance and I took it. And I contin- ued preparing myself, and that’s why I was able to compete later on and then gain titles. Where do you see yourself I ten years? For sure I’m not going be competing, although we have a diver in the series that is 44 years old. I want to get into event management or stuff like that. I don’t think I can go back to an office. I spent 25 years of my life outdoors. So I think something that has to do with sports and outside that might be my choice.

Can you describe the moment just a few seconds before And then the highest that I have ever done was from a bridge in Ita-you jump? ly. It was 34 metres. There you just have to make sure you do every- thing right with the dive.I’m fully focussed on the dive – one hundred percent I’m thinkingabout what I am about to do. My mind is concentrating on a goodtake off, because I know if I have a good take of, I know I’m going to Where lies the most beautiful spot that you have ever dove?have a good dive.Do you do any mental training for that? In Hawaii we have very beautiful spots. I mean, I live there and I get to see a lot of that there. But in Italy there are great places at the Amalfi coast. In Capri, there is thatThe mental training is like the physical training, done “The area where I had to land beautiful cave, beautiful water, niceway before. The whole year you train your body for rocks. I’ve been lucky that I can trav-the dive and mentally you see the dive, you visual- el to that many places. So if I had toize everything. But this mental preparation goes ‘till was very small and I had to pick a favourite, it would probablylike the last minute, and after that you fully focus on jump very far to get there.” be Hawaii and Italy.what’s happening now. Everything is really calm then.All the nervousness is already gone. What do you think was the greatest success in yourWhat role does the feeling of fear play? entire life?I think that the feeling of fear is important for me, because it keeps In my sporting career I think that my greatest success is when I wonme focused, it keeps me going through the right steps. I have to go my first world championship in 2000. I scored a perfect 10 from thethrough step 1, then step 2, then step 3 to have a good dive. So it seven judges. It was my first world championship and the ten is thehelps me get focused to have a more successful dive. highest score you can get for a single dive, so I really remember that.What do you do the whole year to keep your body fit? What is “pure luxury” for you?The physical training is like the long part of the process. I do a lot of You know I’m a simple guy, I actually like simple things. A perfectrunning, biking, I do strength exercises for my legs, stretching and day for me is to wake up, eat some good food, be able to dive at aof course in the pool the more specific water training to keep the really nice location and rest in the afternoon enjoying a drink. Thatdiving technique. would be luxury for me.Have you ever been injured? What is the best part of cliff diving?In 2002 I broke my tailbone. I over-rotated in one of my dives and like it because it’s a simple sport. All we are doing is jumping intolanded almost like sitting. the water. We add fancy tricks and difficult twists, but it’s a simple thing. You can enjoy it even if you are just jumping. If you find a spotWhich one was the scariest dive that you ever did? that is high enough and there is water down there you can already jump. When you’re in the air, I love that feeling of falling. The speed,When we were filming “Nine Dive”, my movie, I did a dive in a water- you see the water as you are falling down and you are really fast, Ifall in the south of Austria. It was difficult, not because it was very enjoy that!high, the height was only about 22 metres, but the area where I hadto land was very small and I had to jump very far to get there. Soeverything had to be calculated perfectly. That was probably one ofthe scariest I have done.

7 Jawdropping pictures From the Red Bull Cliff Diving World SeriesThe world’s best cliff divers went toAzores, Portugal, to participate inthe Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series.Photographer Romina Amato cap-tured some breathtaking pictures







High achiever interveiw:Cliff diver Blake Aldridge drops inThe one-time dive partner of Tom Daley, Aldridge competed at the 2008 Beijing Olympics for Great Britain, but claimedpossibly the biggest individual win of his career so far in the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series’ first stop in Cuba earlierthis month. Cause for celebration and a quick word with RedBull.com...Where does winning in Cuba rank and look down 28 metres but, once you portrayed it. I’ve been working with himin your list of achievements? overcome that fear, very quickly your mind on Celebrity Splash and helping him learnIt’s right up there with the best of them. I adapts to the length of time you’re in the air. a new dive so we don’t have any problemsthink given how high it is and how fearful now and, if anything the heartache of the Olympics, and not doing as well as I thoughtyou are when you jump off, all the emotions Does landing feet-first as opposed we were going to do, that really made meare magnified. I’m a little bit older now than to head-first take a lot of getting retire from Olympic diving and move intowhen I used to? cliff diving and I’m so thankful that that’swon the World Championships, that’s proba- happened. If I’d still been diving with Tom, I’dbly the fondest memory that I have, but win- It’s taken me nearly three years! When you still be doing that now and now I’ve movedning in Cuba might have topped that. try all your life, from the age of five, and you onto something new. It’s way more exciting suddenly have to change and you add in and challenging for me than normal diving three times the height and the fear factor, was.What’s the biggest difference between it’s difficult. It does take time to learn. It’sOlympic diving and cliff diving? very easy to do a barani [the manoeuvre that What’s the highest you’ve everMainly the height! Obviously it’s three times combines a somersault with half a twist that dived from?higher than what I was used to and the is used by the diver to line up for a feet-firstmain visual difference is that we land head- entry] and I thought that once I’d done the Me and [US diver] Kent De Mond fre-first from the 10-metre and feet-first cliff dive I’d pick eclimbed a cliff in the middle of the sea inwhen cliff diving, purely because of “It’s a hard barrier to over- that up really Corsica and we jumped off and it absolutelythe speed at which you hit the water. come to get up there and easily, but the smashed me and Kent said he felt the im- look down 28 metres…’’ last couple of pact pretty hard as well. We got out andWhat do you need to make the years I’ve tended there were a lot of locals who watched us do to overtwist on my entry. It’s very easy to do it. The story is the top of the cliff from wherestep-up to cliff diving? we jumped was 32 metres - whether it wasI feel quite proud having done what I’ve a barani, but to do a barani and then have or not, I don’t know, but it certainly felt likedone. I think there are many divers who are your arms down by your side and hit the it!too regimented and they don’t have an open water and stay square is extremely difficult.mind. It’s not that they wouldn’t be able toprogress into it, it’s having the open mind. You dove with Tom Daley in BeijingIt’s obviously very different, but there are but had quite a public falling-outa lot of fundamentals you get from nor- afterwards. How did that episodemal diving that you use in cliff diving. It’s affect you?a hard barrier to overcome to get up there It wasn’t a falling-out the way the media



April 25 | Cartagena, COLOMBIA Colombia and Bosnia are new to the calendar of this awe-inducing series, in which once more 10 of the world’s best cliff divers and up to four wildcards per stop launch from 27 metres, reaching speeds in excess of 85kph in less than three seconds. Between April and September, the competition will also touch down in Texas, France, Portugal, Italy, with an additional stop in Europe, before the final showdown in Spain.May 17 |La Rochelle,FRANCE

May 30 | Possum Kingdom Lake, Texas, USAJune 20 |Copenhagen,DENMARK July 18 | S. Miguel, Azores, PORTUGAL

September 13 | August 15 |Polignano a Mare, Mostar,ITALY BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA September 26 | Bilbao, SPAIN

Top Ten facts about Cliff DivingIn the cliff diving world championships the world’s 14 best divers jump off a man made platform 27m in the air to com-pete for the world title. Here are ten facts you may not know about cliff diving:1You cannot practice dive at performance heights for long periods of time as a lot of stress would be put under the body and you would shrink in height.2Speedos aren’t just for fun. If the divers wear normal swimming shorts when they hit the water, the fabric would cause so much drag that it could force their legs apart and cause injuries.3Hardly any of the divers eat breakfast on competition day - they say it’s hard- er to perform twists on a full stomach.4The divers are against tides, winds and weather fronts. Often divers get blown sideways and run the risk of hitting the rocks.5If you land head first while cliff diving, the speed you are going at would cause you to be knocked out or even killed.6When competing, divers can reach speeds of up to 53mph which means you can receive fatal injuries if technique is wrong.7When diving you reach 2-3G(G meaning the amount of Gforce), this is 9 times more than Olympic divers go through.8Cliff diving is one of the most dangerous sports in the world. In fact tourism sites that offer the activity don’t promote that they do it.9Because of the high potential of injury, health and safety organisations rec- ommend that no one dives above 20m, however cliff divers jump from over 27m.10Cliff diving originated in the 1700’s when a Hawaiian king got his men to jump into the sea to show that they had courage. Over the years more people started doing it and the sport became more popular.