One of the most fascinating and beautiful events at the Olympic Games is diving. While the synchronized events have already finished at Tokyo 2020, the individual events are getting underway this week. While watching these athletes doing incredible stunts, many people wonder how deep are the pools?
First, let’s dig deeper into this sport. Diving was introduced in the St Louis 1904 Olympic Games. Since then, it has been an Olympic discipline. According to the Olympics official page, the USA used to be the dominating country, but China took the lead in Beijing 2008 with seven medals in the eight events. However, now the competition is more tight, with countries like Great Britain and ROC also winning medals in Tokyo.
Also, there’s two categories in the event. First, it’s the springboard, in which athletes generate bounce from a 3-meter diving board before they jump and second, there’s the platform category, in which the board is fixed and it’s 10 meter-high.
How deep is the diving pool at the Olympics?
As the athletes have to jump from such high heights, the pool has to be very deep for them to be safe. That’s why the International Federation of Aquatic Sports (FINA) recommends that the pool be 5 meters deep, 16.5 ft, for the 10 meters dives at the platform. The minimum is 4.5 meters (16 ft).
For the 3 meters springboard divings, the pool must be at least 3.50 meters deep. However, as the pool used for the Olympics is for both, springboard and platform diving, it must be 5 meters deep at minimum. For reference, the typical pool is up to 10 ft deep.