Braden Rumpit of New Zealand made the most of this first time at a World Aquatics High Diving competition. First, he landed an inward quint half twist from 27m, becoming the youngest to ever do so. One day later, the 21-year-old college student qualified for the World Aquatics Championships - Fukuoka 2023 that will take place this July.
Another first for Rumpit is that he will soon join the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series. In November, he’ll make his first visit to the country that he represents when the 14th edition of the Red Bull tour takes him to Auckland, New Zealand, one of seven breathtaking stops in the series.
On Wednesday the Kiwi diver was introduced by the Mayor of Fort Lauderdale Dean Trantalis as the youngest person to execute a relatively new and exclusive dive. Kiwi is a name for a flightless bird native to New Zealand, and also a friendly name for New Zealanders including Braden's father Peter.
Unlike the bird, this 22-year-old Kiwi diver is often inflight; he has been representing a country in which he hasn’t yet landed on their soil. Mayor Trantalis noted that Rumpit’s new dive was performed from 27m, not coincidentally the exact height of the $5.1 million dollar diving tower that overshadowed the view from the Sky Deck at the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center.
The mayor of Fort Lauderdale was present to greet the 55 divers competing at the first World Aquatics High Diving Cup held in the USA. Rumpit was one of four divers the mayor introduced in the brief opening ceremony..
Rumpit was born in California before his parents moved him and his siblings to Wisconsin. He started diving as a kid competing in club and high school, winning the Wisconsin high school state diving championship in 2019. He was a diver for the University of Wisconsin Badgers team for two seasons.
Everything changed for Rumpit after his freshman year. "Over the summer, I was searching for a job and I saw a posting on Instagram from another high diver that read, 'I'm looking for a high diver, ace up. Does anyone want to do it?'" Rumpit said. "I replied, 'I'd love to do it.'"
One week later, Rumpit was in Alabama, where he spent his summer participating in high diving shows with an emphasis on the show.
Rumpit soon learned that the more he could do in the air, the greater reaction he got from the audience.
In traditional competitive diving, 10 meters is the maximum height a diver would enter the water. In Rumpit's new universe, he has more than doubled the height. Rumpit does the math: "This kind of works really well for me because I'm an engineer, so you can kind of do the calculations and see, "Oh, it takes 1.4 seconds to fall 10 meters, but it takes about two point three seconds to fall from 27 meters," Rumpit said.
"So then you can kind of take the number of flips that you're doing on 10m and reason that if I have an extra second I can probably add maybe two flips." And then from there, you just have to do a lot of visualizations and a lot of drills to make sure that you can do it safely.``
What is the new dive and when did you execute it?
At the end of last summer I was training in Utah and working on new dives. I completed the inward quint half (twist) from 27m. I was 21 last summer and that made me the youngest person to execute this dive. I took videos of my training dives and I posted it online.
A lot of people were pretty shocked when they saw the video because they didn’t realize that I was working on that dive, I won’t use it at this World Cup instead going with my more consistent dives. But I plan to have the “inward quint” ready for Auckland in November.
I have a New Zealand passport, my father Peter grew up in Wellington. My parents flew in to see me dive this weekend in Fort Lauderdale and I hope they will be in Auckland for the Red Bull series.
Who else has executed this dive?
Only Steven Lobue (2017 High Diving World Champion, USA) had previously completed this dive and no one that we know of since. After two years at Wisconsin, I moved to Fort Lauderdale to train at the 27m tower. Steven is now my diving coach in Fort Lauderdale but I executed this dive before Steven was my coach. I did ask Steve for his advice and he was really helpful.
How do you manage your fear?
I wouldn't say I'm fearless because every time I get up there, there's a little bit of fear. Sometimes there's a lot of fear, but you just have to manage it and believe in yourself and trust your preparation.
What’s a typical week of training for you in Fort Lauderdale?
We usually train 5 days for about 2 hours a day. Because of the impact that high diving takes on your body, we usually dive two or three times off the 27m tower. The most high dives that I have ever done in a day is five.
What do you do outside the pool?
My hobbies include Parkour and cliff diving which is a bit more extreme that diving in a pool. I am new to Fort Lauderdale and recently I landed a job working in a kiteboarding shop with no experience whatsoever. I have only been out on the water once for about 30 mins but I am learning about it. We don’t rent kiteboards, we sell them for about $2500 and that’s pricey for guys my age. Some of our customers are crew members from the cruise lines, and they love the extreme nature of the sport of kiteboarding.
What’s life like outside of diving?
I like videography, especially taking videos of diving. I have 10 years of traditional diving experience. Now that I jump from heights of 27m and sometimes add up to 5 flights or twists on the way down it’s fun to record and post videos of my own dives. My original extreme sport was Parkour and videos are a huge part of that so I brought that over with me when I started diving full-time.
You took a break from college to dive in Fort Lauderdale, what’s next?
Yes, I left Wisconsin after two years and I plan to finish my degree at Florida Atlantic University but still training as a high diver.
Have you been on the Red Bull circuit before?
I started high diving in the summer of 2021 but I haven’t been on the tour yet. I have attended one Red Bull event but I just did training dives there. I'm excited to join the Red Bull series and compete in Auckland.