Cliff diving with Orlando Duque

Gulf News

Ten times world champion cliff diver Orlando Duque reminisces about his early training days in Colombia and shares his passion for leaping from daring heights. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv

Transcript

00:00Those three seconds in the air are great.

00:16Everything, I mean, it is really fast when you think about it.

00:18Three seconds is really fast.

00:20But in your head it plays out so much more slow, you know?

00:29I enjoy every dive that I do, before, during and after, it makes me feel alive, excited.

00:52I have a lot of memories at this place, I spent many years there, you know, I don't

00:57think I ever miss a day of practice unless I was sick, I'd love to be at that pool.

01:01I really like to do my training, but my favorite part was right after training, they used to

01:05give us 15-20 minutes to just play around.

01:09Every single crazy thing we could think of, you know, with jumping, with ropes, double

01:14bouncing, anything we could think of, me and my friends, that's what we would do and, you

01:20know, just good fun.

01:21I learned all of that here in Colombia.

01:26The dive is, you know, the breakdown is in three parts, take-off, positions in the air

01:31and landing, like water.

01:39The take-off, you should have a really nice strong take-off, that's the same for diving

01:45and high diving.

01:47The position in the air diving has a really strong technique and the judges look for really,

01:54very small points, like your hands have to be in a nice and straight position, your elbows,

01:59you know, not bent, your hands not like that, you know, like they look for really clean

02:03lines and clean technique as well.

02:06And then the water entry, it should be no splash.

02:16The main difference between a 10-meter Olympic dive and a 27-meter cliff dive is, well, besides

02:24the height, the speed that we reach is much, much higher.

02:28We're hitting the water at probably close to 90 kilometers an hour and because of that,

02:32the impact is much harder, so that, you know, creates a lot more risks for the diver.

02:45Cliff diving is the most important thing to me, you know, I enjoy every dive that I do.

03:03I'm ready to go.

Category

Transcript

Recommended