The World Aquatics High Diving World Cup series returns to Porto Flavia, Italy, this weekend at the picturesque mine carved into the cliffs of southwest Sardinia. All the big names will be competing July 11-12. Here’s what to expect.
The first two rounds will be held on Saturday. The final two rounds are scheduled for Sunday. The highest cumulative score determines the winner. And both fields will be stacked with talent.
On the men’s side, four world champions headline the event. Two-time world champ Gary Hunt of France is still a threat at age 42. The 2023 champion, Constantin Popovici of Romania, 37, won a Red Bull Cliff Diving event just two weeks ago in Denmark. The 2024 world champ, Aidan Heslop of Great Britain, 24, won a Red Bull event in May. And the reigning world champ, James Lichtenstein of the US, 31, won this season’s other Red Bull event in June.
None of these world champions made the podium at the World Cup opener in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in May, however. Heslop was coming off a year-long break due to back surgery and he had to abandon his notoriously difficult 6.6 DD dive. Even so, Heslop led at the midpoint, only to finish fifth. Meanwhile, Popovici was slightly injured and finished fourth. Hunt and Lichtenstein didn’t compete. Instead, all the pressure was on the final diver, Catalin-Petru Preda, 35, who aced one of his famous armstand dives for the win. He will be a podium contender, too.
With so much talent and so many X factors, the Porto Flavia men’s World Cup is anything but predictable.
The women’s side is only slightly clearer.
As usual, five-time world champion Rhiannan Iffland of Australia, 34, will be the heavy favourite. The Aussie skipped the World Cup opener in May but she has won two (of three) Red Bull stops so far this season.
She is not infallible, however, and all three divers who made the 2026 World Cup podium in her absence will be vying for an upset.
The Fort Lauderdale winner, 31-year-old Iris Schmidbauer of Germany, will try to go 2-for-2. Runner-up Molly Carlson of Canada, 27, a two-time World Championship silver medalist, is always a contender, even though she admitted that she almost quit the sport in April.
Perhaps most intriguing will be Kaylea Arnett, the only diver to have beaten Iffland this year, on June 5 – by a mere 0.10 point – on the Red Bull circuit. Just before that, at the World Cup opener, the indigenous American vaulted out of ninth place on her final dive to take bronze with a reverse triple pike.
Two other rising stars worth watching include Switzerland’s Morgane Herculano, 26, who was on track to win her first World Cup event in May until her final dive (a back-twisting triple pike, or 5262B) dropped her to seventh place. Also, 19-year-old Ukrainian, Nelli Chukanivska was right behind Herculano on the first day of the World Cup opener but placed fourth, less than one point off the podium. She, too, will be chasing a win.
As for the photographically stunning venue… 2026 marks the second time Porto Flavia has hosted the World Cup. The platforms are so elusive that the athletes will have to reach the 27m and 20m height s either by climbing through an old mine tunnel or by ascending a ladder from the water. Spectators on-site watch from the sea.