On the sports news last night I saw something about Red Bull Cliff Diving. I had never heard about it before and I think it is awesome!!!
Some of the locations they go to are amazing. Does anyone know how long this has been going? Looks like diving is pretty much the only speedo sport left now that swimmers wear those full body suits.
This has to be good for the public acceptance of speedos – particularly when the divers look so good in their speedos.
1 Comments
fred
Red Bull has been sponsoring cliff diving events for quite some time. You can find lots of pictures and videos all over the internet.
“Cliff diving” is not restricted to cliffs. It can also be done from bridges, cranes or high buildings, which must be higher than the highest platform at official swimming competitions, which is 10 meters.
Countrary to what you might expect, cliff diving is very strenuous and requires much strength and very good physical shape. There are several reasons, why speedos are standard for cliff diving:
(1) The same rules as for platform diving apply. For platform diving, speedo type swimwear is mandatory.
(2) If the rules for platform diving are observed, the jumps look very elegant and appealing. Wearing those horrible trash bags (also referred to as “boardies”) does not comply with the spirit of this type of sport.
(3) Diving into the water head first is very uncommon at hights exceeding 10 meters, because the forces on arms and shoulders would be extreme. When diving into the water feet first, any suit which is not tight might allow the water to enter suit like a shock wave and rip it into pieces.
In recent times, people wo do not want to comply with rules of platform diving, invented “free style diving”. “No stile diving” would be a much better name and it is not very surprising, that trashbag like “swimsuits” are standard for this kind of activity. The risk of ripping the “shorts” (which should rather be called “longs”) does not exist here, because in order to violate the platform diving rules, it is necessary to cause high water fountains by avoiding entering the water straight.
Best regards from Munich (Germany)