Death Diving: The Latest Sport Making a Splash

Subscribe now using your favorite service:
        

If you’ve ever seen traditional diving at the Olympic Games or in real life, you know that the cleaner the dive, the better the score. The goal in that discipline is to enter the water as straight as possible with as little splash as possible. But starting in the 1970s, a new generation of divers began something just a bit different. Starting in Norway, these diving daredevils started jumping from substantial heights, doing crazy stunts on the way down, entering the water in a hunched position not just for safety but to create the largest splash possible. Imagine something that combines the flips of snowboard halfpipe with the satisfaction of a cannonball and that gets you close.

But now Døds Diving or Death Diving if you’re Norwegian isn’t up to speed, has become a legitimate event circuit, hosting world championships since 2008. Leading the charge is Paul Rigault, CEO and co-founder of the Døds Diving League and Døds Federation, and Stine Brun Kjeldaas, the league head of sports and media, and a World Champion, X Games gold medalist and silver medalist in snowboarding at the 1998 Olympic Winter Games in Nagano. In this episode, we talk with Paul and Stine about what it takes to host one of these events, what an ideal host venue looks like, what the atmosphere is like at a Døds competition and why in the world anyone would want to hurl themselves off a high dive platform, spin around on the way down and splash their way to victory. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

Among the topics in this episode

• Details on the sport of Døds Diving (4:35)
• The main differences between Døds Diving and traditional diving (5:20)
• How high divers will dive from (5:51)
• How deep the water needs to be to dive in (7:10)
• How the sport is judged (7:34)
• What kinds of athletes typically compete (9:08)
• How many events are being produced on the circuit (10:30)
• Ideal venues that work for the sport (11:16)
• U.S. destinations that are hosting events on the circuit (12:05)
• The role of social media in growing the sport (12:34)
• A stunt in Utah that went viral (14:17)
• The atmosphere at live events (14:57)
• Stine’s background in snowboarding (16:25)
• Similarities between snowboarding’s growth and Døds Diving (17:52)
• Paul’s background in the early days of Døds Diving (18:34)
• Opportunities for women to beat men in the sport (20:14)
• Is there a future for this event in the Olympic Games? (20:43)
• Increase of U.S. athletes competing at the highest level (21:39)
• Where they see the future of the sport’s events (22:11)
• Other aspects of the event series that poise it for growth (23:23)

This episode is sponsored by: