Leap of Faith

What's 27m up in the sky, wearing swimming trunks and obviously crazy? Mike Peake meets the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series divers, as they splash down in La Rochelle

PHOTO © DEAN TREML/RED BULL CLIFF DIVING

It’s not the first time I have worn a wetsuit – that would have been the day some fruitcake asked me to go waterskiing in a London lake in December. But to say I’m struggling with the fit would be an understatement. It’s so tight around the back that if I relax my arms they ping out at right angles, and when I repeatedly try to climb up a small ledge to stand on the harbour wall it must look like I’m attempting to do the Riverdance.

Eventually, I scramble up – then I look down. Next to me is Gary Hunt, Britain’s best cliff diver, who gives me a nod of encouragement as he glances up at the 27m-high board he will be jumping off later on. While it’s not going to win me any medals, the 7m drop they’ve set aside for me is about seven times greater than any dive I’ve ever made. “Legs together, big jump, deep breath, splash,” says Gary. Let’s give it a go, shall we?

The Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series is a humdinger of a weekend. I’m here because the 2010 competition is kicking off in La Rochelle, France, and that’s a whole lot less flying time than the last leg, in Hawaii. Among the 12 divers taking part are an ice-cool Colombian, some Frenchmen, and a dangerous-looking Russian. But the guy everyone is talking about around the time of my own death-defying leap is an Australian called Steve.

It’s the day before the actual competition, and during training from the diving platform attached to La Rochelle’s historic St Nicolas Tower, Steve has a disaster. As I find out quickly, this type of high-diving is one of the most dangerous sports there is – and Steve’s twisty-turny leap (note: this may not be the correct technical term) looked wrong all the way down. Landing with more splash than any of this daredevil dozen ever want to hear, it knocks the former champion for six. He’s OK, but it’s touch and go whether he’ll want to dive in the contest tomorrow.

My own leap passes without incident, but it still feels like an achievement, and takes a bit of nerve. Later, when I peer down from the pros’ 27m-high spot, I can see the wall from which I flung myself and it looks comically low. Someone tells me that from up here, the impact upon landing is nine times more severe than the 10m board that Olympians dive from. No wonder they take it all so seriously.

Cliff diving began in Hawaii in the 1700s, and 100 years later the islands’ king was holding the first contests. It became synonymous with large-chested men and craggy Mexican cliffs after Elvis Presley’s whimsical Fun in Acapulco, then it all went a bit quiet. Like many cool sports it survived underground, with mavericks from all over the world testing their mettle at secluded spots where land meets sea. It may not be on prime time TV, but it’s still there. And, with Red Bull adding its weight for the past few years, cliff diving is back on the extreme sports agenda.

“It’s a real test of nerves,” says Gary, who started diving at his local pool aged 10. “Even in training you have to force yourself to do it. In your head you go: ‘Maybe I’ve done enough of these dives, maybe I don’t need to do it again.’ But you have to force yourself, because if you don’t train then you regret it on competition day.”

You can cliff-dive all over Europe – the World Series takes in France, Switzerland, Norway and Italy – although none of the professionals would recommend trying it at the regulation height, which is 26m–27m. The thwack upon landing is so great that you can actually puncture your lungs or break your back. Even when it goes exactly to plan it hurts. “I’m lucky,” says Gary, who can normally be found diving twice a day at a pirate show in the French town of Metz. “The worst I’ve had is some nasty bruising. But I did get stung by a jellyfish once. I’d dived in at an event in Italy and got stung on the swim back to shore.”

When the competition begins, all eyes are on Gary, a runner-up in last year’s event. La Rochelle is a pretty and bustling historic town, and on a sunny Saturday the day-trippers boost the number of spectators into the tens of thousands. All 12 competitors start with a dive that has an official difficulty rating of 3.6, then follow it up with a dive of their choice. Gary’s newest creation has got all of the other divers worried because it measures 6.3 on the Richter scale, and is the most difficult attempted by any of them. If he does it well, he’ll be way out in front. After two dives he’s winning, and Gary goes on to seal the deal with a final dive, an eye-popping quadruple somersault with one-and-a-half twists, which makes you think he’s been fired out of a cement mixer. His smile on the podium is so big it threatens to knock some of the crowd into the Atlantic. “I was very nervous before my last dive,” Gary tells us, as he shivers in his trunks. “But it worked. I couldn’t be happier.”

There’s Champagne, autographs and one big grinning Aussie in the shape of Steve Black, who overcame yesterday’s setback to score a respectable 5th placing. “It’s a diver’s nightmare to get lost in the air from that height, because the consequences, really, are death,” he says.

So although I’ve (kind of) tried this myself, I’m still wondering what drives these men – who turn up on their own and with nothing but a pair of Speedos – to hurl themselves off a platform into the sea, risking life and limb. “It’s the freedom,” Steve smiles. “The pleasure. It’s hard to describe. It’s so scary, but after you hit the water, the adrenaline’s pumping and I can’t really tell you how it feels because it’s off the scale. It pushes you, and that’s what extreme sports are all about.”

A day later, as the Red Bull platform is being taken down and the divers get back to their day jobs – like Gary, the bulk of them earn a living in some sort of stunt show – I can’t help wishing that I’d had just one go at a dive from 27m. In three seconds, you accelerate from 0 to 100km/h, hit three Gs and, if you get it just right, you enter the water with barely a whisper – a noise they call a “rip” because it sounds like someone tearing paper. No one in their right mind would have let me do it, of course, but I could have snuck back here in the night when everyone was asleep. Imagine that: a death-defying leap into the cold black sea, sliding under the surface, struggling for air and then bursting back up, triumphant.

Actually, maybe not. There’s no way that wetsuit would have been up to it. And, all bravado aside, I think this is perhaps one sport that’s best left to the professionals.

SEE THE RED BULL CLIFF DIVING WORLD SERIES 2010 AT KRAGERØ, NORWAY, ON 24 JULY (FLY TO OSLO, RYGGE AND TORP); POLIGNANO A MARE, ITALY, ON 8 AUGUST (FLY TO BARI); AND SISIKON, SWITZERLAND, ON 28 AUGUST (FLY TO FRIEDRICHSHAFEN). THE FINALE IN HAWAII IS ON 12 SEPTEMBER. FOR MORE DETAILS, VISIT www.REDBULLCLIFFDIVING.COM