At Momochi Beach on Tuesday, world championship high diving returned after a four-year hiatus. Australia’s Rhiannan Iffland took an early lead in her attempt at a three-peat – but three Canadians are stacked right behind her, led by Simone Leathead who only started 20m platform diving in February. The 2023 World Cup winner, Molly Carlson, is 3.1 points behind Leathead and 10.40 points behind Iffland. The 2019 bronze medalist, Jessica Macaulay, is in fourth.

Round 2 of the men’s competition was interrupted by thunder, lightning, and a 50-minute downpour right after the ninth diver (of 23). By the time Romania’s Constantin Popovici and Catalin-Petru Preda made their second dives to claim first and second place at the midpoint of the competition, the man in third, Oleksiy Prygorov of Ukraine, had already taxied back to his room to recover. The men’s competition concludes on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the women will return on Wednesday to make their final two dives: one “intermediate” level, with a degree of difficulty (DD) no greater than 3.4, and the last one, which has unlimited DD.

Until then, the two-time world champion Iffland, 31, said, she was “not necessarily” used to being in the lead. “Lately it’s been a bit tit for tat,” she said, adding that her start was “solid. It wasn’t my best, but it was enough. In the first round, it’s always hard to shake off the nerves. I was feeling that a little bit,” she said, although she received the highest score on her back double.

In the second round, Iffland did her biggest dive, a back triple with two twists (with a 4.3 DD). “I wanted to get it out of the way today, and really nail tomorrow’s dives,” she said. “The dives tomorrow are completely different.” She built a combined total of 160.90 points.

The diver currently in second, 20-year-old Leathead of Canada, was making her world championship debut after 16 years as a pool diver and only five months on the 20m tower. “I’m super happy with what I did today,” she said. “The water and platform are just perfect.”

Carlson, 24, was in third. She is the only woman to have beaten Iffland since 2018. “I’m super happy with those [first two dives],” she said. “I was struggling a bit with my bigger dive during practice this week[an inward triple with ½ twist with a 4.0 DD], so to put it down in competition felt really good. We’ll see some big scores tomorrow. I’ve got some big dives and I’m excited!”

The 5-foot-10 bronze medalist from 2019, Macaulay, 30, said, “this time around, I’m just doing the same thing that I did last time: focusing on every single dive and focusing on the way I want to feel before a dive. I want to feel confident and I want to surrender to any uncomfortable feelings that come up. There’s a lot of fear, anxiety. I totally surrender to them. When I don’t tighten up to try to control them, they help me perform my best.”

Men at the Midpoint, after 2 dives

When the rain interrupted the men’s second round of dives, the current leader, Popovici of Romania, 34, climbed down 27-meters worth of narrow steps and headed for the athlete tent. While other competitors were resting, he was doing front- and backflips off a box onto a crash mat. “This helps my inner ear,” he explained. “Otherwise if I stay still too long and then I flip four times and three twists [in the dive], it will make you dizzy so I do some rotations to help my orientation stay fresh.” It worked.

Popovici doesn’t look at or focus on rankings so he might not know that he has a 24.60-point lead over Preda, but he knows he’s in first. “I’m glad I’m leading,” he said. “It was a good start,” especially since he scored 9s on his hardest dive (with 5.8 DD): a back quad with three twists to earn 156.60 of his 232.20 points.

Preda, 32, the runner-up at the midpoint, returned to the world championships with far more experience than in his 2019 debut. “That was probably my third competition overall at that point,” he said, referring to Gwangju. “I was still figuring things out. Now, it’s a different story. I knew how to cope better with the break when the storm that rolled over of us. I was the very next diver to go.

Also of Note 

British 21-year-old Aidan Heslop, who threw the hardest high dive in history earlier this year, opted out of his 6.6 DD and did a world-first reverse triple with four twists, instead (with a 5.9DD), but the risk backfired on entry, and he dropped from third to 13^th. 

Two-time world champion Gary Hunt, 39, of France, scored 9s on his optional dive (with a 4.9DD) to rise from 12^th to fifth. He will have to bridge a 42.50-point gap to overtake Popvici on Thursday.