dwenius: (Default)
dwenius ([personal profile] dwenius) wrote2008-06-22 10:55 pm

of interest to approx. nobody...

This past weekend at the Olympic trials, Chris Colwill, a springboard and platform diver, pulled off a reverse 2.5 somersault with 2.5 twists.

Degree of difficulty: 3.9

Nobody else in the competition tried anything with a DD higher than 3.5 (reverse 3.5, forward 3.5 pike, etc.). For comparison, a forward 4.5 somersault, tuck, which AFAIK has only been attempted by a handful of people in history, is only a 3.5 DD. For those not familiar with the intricacies of diving scoring, DD is a multiplier on the average of the judges individual scores. The only technique I know of with a higher DD is an inward 4.5 somersault (i.e., stand backwards and throw your head towards the board/platform at full speed), which has only been tried once, by a very young and skinny Chinese diver who pancaked badly and handed Louganis his last Olympic gold.

Colwill apparently ripped his gainer and pocketed the .4x "balls of steel" bonus. Kudos.

[identity profile] megasus4.livejournal.com 2008-06-23 01:33 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't suppose there's a Youtube video or anything? I enjoy watching Olympic diving, but a text description doesn't give me much of a mental image.

[identity profile] dwenius.livejournal.com 2008-06-23 09:11 pm (UTC)(link)
There is no Youtube of trials yet, and no Youtube of this exact dive as it's only been performed 2 or 3 times ever. BUT! If you take this dive here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhX0jA3mAQE&feature=related and add another somersault you'll have the general idea. Now I'm wondering: tuck or pike? Pike would be the most awesomest trick possible in this sport, but physics tells me it's probably tuck. One can hope.