World Courant
BOSTON — Rhiannan Iffland stepped to the sting of a platform practically seven tales above Boston Harbor, 1000’s of cheering followers packed onto the docks, rooftops, and sidewalks under, and soared by the air as town skyline disappeared behind her as she descended into the tea-brown water shot. .
All in a day’s work for one of many world’s high rivals in cliff diving – a sport the place the abyss is usually not a cliff in any respect. Iffland, from Australia, stated competitors amongst cliff divers leaping on the Institute of Up to date Artwork throughout a Saturday competitors in Boston was fierce.
“I do know the stress is coming – and the younger ladies are diving tremendous nicely,” Iffland stated after successful the ladies’s part.
Iffland’s victory was a part of the massive cliff diving occasion, which got here to central New England because the Pink Bull Cliff Diving World Collection made the a hundredth cease in its historical past. Contributors plunged 90 toes within the air from the waterfront artwork museum to the chilly harbor under. British diver Aidan Heslop received the lads’s competitors and stated “All of us have our work to do” for the remainder of the sequence.
Boston is the one cease within the US this yr. The sequence concludes in November in Sydney, Australia.
Cliff diving attracts a particular sort of athlete, particularly when successful means leaping from an artwork museum into doubtlessly icy waters under, organizers say.
“These epic athletes practice tremendous exhausting to make sure each leap, flip, twist and entry is ideal,” organizers stated in an announcement.
Follow and early competitors rounds had been held on Friday. The jury will decide Saturday’s competitors spherical based mostly on the shape and strategy of the divers. Two dozen folks participated.
It was the third yr in a row that the favored spectator occasion got here to Boston. Organizers stated the weekend attracted 45,000 folks.
The artwork museum stated in an announcement that the occasion was a visually beautiful alternative for the general public and an opportunity for the athletes to earn “important championship factors based mostly on their remaining occasion positions” alongside the best way.
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Whittle reported from Portland, Maine.
They stand on the sting of glory and on the sting of an artwork museum, as cliff divers come to Boston
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