PALIN MITENK BLOG

By Mail Foreign Service

Divers launch themselves into the Cenote Ik Kil on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula during a practice session before yesterday's competition


These amazing images were captured during the latest round of the Red Bull Cliff Diving world series at the weekend.

Fearless athletes launch themselves from the edge of the world famous Cenote Ik Kil, a 90ft deep sink hole in Yucatán peninsula.

They plunge from bright sunlight into the gloomy depths below, hitting the water at almost 40mph.

And it was a Briton who triumphed - Gary Hunt, from Southampton, overcame challenges from Colombian Orlando Duque and Russian Artem Silchenko.

His personal perception of cliff diving is 'out of this world' and Gary's performance these days can also be described as not of this world: the 25-yearold’s innovative style and creativity culminated in the second consecutive win at Sunday’s competition.

The exotic surrounding of Cenote Ik Kil was the perfect venue for high-class high diving from 90ft into sacred fresh water.

The Triple Quad – the most difficult dive, the first one exclusively perceived for cliff diving and invented by the Southampton-based diver – assured Gary Hunt top spot on the podium.

With the day’s top score of 160.00 points he took the lead by 27.25 points ahead of his closest competitors in round two.




One of the atheletes performs a dive into the Cenote Ik Kil, near Chichen Itza yesterday


Russian diver Artem Silchenko straightens and tenses his body as he prepares to enter the water. Right, Silchenko spears into the sinkhole as he completes his dive


To pick up his trophy he only needed a solid third dive, but his spirit of innovation was rewarded once more: 'It is hard work and practice. Learning all my difficult dives last year has paid off.

'I don’t know why the others don’t try the same DD but I suppose it’s because it’s a very difficult dive and you cannot practice in a diving pool.

'You just have to trust in yourself and go for it. When you see somebody before you get good scores, like Artem, it definitely makes you think that you have to do this and you go for 10s every time.'

After a 2nd place at the kick-off competition in La Rochelle, France, three weeks ago, nine-times world champion Duque finished 3rd (348.40 points).

Performing an impressive new dive with a so-called blind entry – a rarely shown landing manouevre where the diver sees the water for the last time at least half a somersault before the entry and lines up 'blind' – Artem Silchenko claimed 2nd position (363.05 points).


Cyrille Oumedjkane of France dives from the 27 meter platform during training in the lead up round two of the Red Bull Cliff Diving world series


Nine times world champion Orlando Duque of Colombia dives from the 90ft platform


In the overall standings after two out of six stops Englishman Hunt leads with a score of 40 points ahead of Orlando Duque (29 points) and Artem Silchenko (27 points).

And so Gary proved that British diving does not start and end with Olympic diver Tom Daley.

Last year, he finished in second spot behind Duque and was an ever-present in the top three.

The 25-year-old has attempted a lot – he studied maths for two years, changed to sports before turning to criminology, just for the fun of it.

Unpredictable as he is, the Englishman is nevertheless the most progressive diver in the series.

He always has a new dive in mind to use as a secret weapon


Artem Silchenko dives during the second round of the competition. He would eventually place second


Gary got the taste for blood in 2009 and will want more this season.

The Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series follows the traditional high diving format.

Divers hand in their three planned dives the day before the competition – one required dive of a maximum degree of difficulty of 3.6 and two optional dives.

The dives are judged by five judges. The highest and lowest score are discarded – the remaining three scores are added and multiplied by the degree of difficulty to provide the total score for each dive.

The points of the first two dives will be added together to produce each diver’s score after two rounds. The top six will qualify for the final. The other six divers that did not reach the final will be ranked seventh to 12th based on their cumulative scores after two rounds.

The six divers in the final will be ranked according to their cumulative scores after three rounds.

source :dailymail