Friday marked a fascinating start to the 2026 season of high diving.

Five-time world champion Rhiannan Iffland was missing. So was James Lichtenstein, who won the 2025 world title. On the other hand, Aidan Heslop was returning, but no one knew what the 2024 world champion could do after his year-long absence due to back surgery. Then, on Friday, when the men’s leaderboard appeared to be set after the second round, a two-time world medalist was granted a rare re-dive. Meanwhile, on the women’s side, a pair of Canadian world medalists were eclipsed by a teenager. Find out what exactly transpired and what the athletes had to say.

Women’s 20m

In the women’s 20m event, no one was surprised that two-time World Championship silver medalist Molly Carlson, 27, of Canada took an early lead after the first dive. But in round two, immediately after the Swiss Harvard graduate Morgane Herculano scored 98.00 points for her inward triple with a half twist, a 19-year-old Ukrainian, Nelli Chukanivska, laid out a stunning armstand back 2½ pike to pop into second place, just 2.0 points behind Herculano.

When the divers were finished, Germany’s Iris Schmidbauer, 31, was in third place, and Ginni van Katwijk of the Netherlands was fourth. Carlson, the Canadian favourite who has more than seven million followers on social media, was in fifth place, trailing Herculano by 14.30 points with two dives remaining on Saturday.

After Friday’s dives, Herculano, 26, was thrilled to lead the field. “Body's phenomenal, mind’s phenomenal,” she said. “I mean, I love the sport.

“I love this pool. I've been training here since the beginning of the year. Conditions were ideal: no wind, prime weather, prime vibes. The inward’s been my trickiest dive. I had a few mishaps in training over the offseason where I hit the platform a couple times. Definitely the hardest dive in my list. I'm stoked.”

Chukanivska, the teenager, was also happy – especially since it was her first time competing in Fort Lauderdale. “The tower is very beautiful, very perfect,” she said. On Saturday, expect Chukanivska to be a medal threat. The young star made her first Red Bull Cliff Diving podium at age 17.

The eldest woman in the top three, Schmidbauer, had brought her 20-month-old daughter, Leilani, with her to Florida, “I'm very relieved, very happy,” she said. “I was super excited to show my back triple [flip] double [twist] again. Last year, I took a twist out of that dive because I was still breastfeeding and I didn't have the power. But this year, I was excited to do it again - first time after pregnancy competing this big dive. I'm super stoked that it went well in the comp. I'm excited to see what's gonna happen tomorrow.”

Men’s 27m

In the first round of the men’s event, multiple ties meant that six men were ranked the top four, all separated by 4.2 points.

By the end of the second round, Aidan Heslop took the lead, edging Constantin Popovici of Romania by 0.80 points. 

Even though Heslop, 24, has an incremental edge, the 2024 world champion proved that he was back in form despite the May 2025 back surgery that sidelined him for a year – as well as a recent minor groin injury – both of which mean that he won’t be throwing his claim-to-fame hardest dive in the world (with 6.6 DD) in Fort Lauderdale, and maybe not for a while.

“Just goes to show what easy dives can do if you do them well. I was focused on [my] lines today [as opposed to power]. It was a good way to start the comeback. Tomorrow, I have bigger dives – but so do the others. If I [earn] some nines like I did today, I think I can stay up on that podium.” And with that, he said, “I'm going to the beach. Straight to the beach. No physio for me.”

Popovici, 37, the 2023 world champion, performed the hardest dive of the day, a 6.0 DD armstand triple twisting back 3½, to score 123.00 points for it and vault into second place (up from ninth after the first round).

Popovici called his own performance on Friday, “amazing, because I was dealing with an injury. Last Saturday, I injured my right adductor on the handstand dive. [Today,] I went with my heart and went in without training dives. My mentality is strong.”

The rest of the field shifted, however, when the two-time World Championship medalist Catalin-Petru Preda of Romania, 34, was granted a re-dive of his double-twisting back quad which had originally earned 73.95 points and put him in 11^th place in the 17-man field. He had been distracted by a honking boat before the dive. And when he performed it again, it was extremely clean – good for 117.30 points, and a total of 185.90, which put him one-tenth of a point behind his countryman Popovici, and nine-tenths of a points behind Heslop, the leader.

Afterwards, Preda explained: “I had my second chance and I'm glad that there was consensus and everyone validated my concern. I think it was a first time that a re-dive happened in high diving, or in the last eight years that I can remember.

“In high diving, there's distractions everywhere,” Preda acknowledged, “but this time, it was different. I thought maybe it was a funky boat horn. Right as I set my feet and I was getting ready for the dive, it just started going off. It was very high-pitched, very chaotic, quite distracting. I waited patiently for it to stop. It did stop after several seconds. Then I was ready – and right as I took off, it went again and it was even crazier. I could hear also screams. That split second in my mind, bouncing between that sound and my dive, made a huge difference in my execution. I flagged the distraction and the sound, and I was given my chance at a re-dive, and I'm grateful for that.”

Every dive from 27 meters adds significant stress to the body, so Preda said “the rest of the day is about resting and recharging for tomorrow. I do feel tired. I do feel the extra dive. It was three dives in the comp and one warm-up dive. So that's four dives total. That's why I'm counting on the extra hours now. I'm gonna run for lunch and I’m just gonna put my legs up the wall and start with a bit of stretching and being in top shape for tomorrow.

“But I think that goes to show that I can mobilize myself, re-collect, and dive as I know I'm capable.”

The final two rounds will begin Saturday at 10:00 Eastern US time.