Ten times world champion cliff diver Orlando Duque reminisces about his early training days in Colombia and shares his passion for leaping from daring heights. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv
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00:00Those three seconds in the air are great.
00:16Everything, I mean, it is really fast when you think about it.
00:18Three seconds is really fast.
00:20But in your head it plays out so much more slow, you know?
00:29I enjoy every dive that I do, before, during and after, it makes me feel alive, excited.
00:52I have a lot of memories at this place, I spent many years there, you know, I don't
00:57think I ever miss a day of practice unless I was sick, I'd love to be at that pool.
01:01I really like to do my training, but my favorite part was right after training, they used to
01:05give us 15-20 minutes to just play around.
01:09Every single crazy thing we could think of, you know, with jumping, with ropes, double
01:14bouncing, anything we could think of, me and my friends, that's what we would do and, you
01:20know, just good fun.
01:21I learned all of that here in Colombia.
01:26The dive is, you know, the breakdown is in three parts, take-off, positions in the air
01:31and landing, like water.
01:39The take-off, you should have a really nice strong take-off, that's the same for diving
01:45and high diving.
01:47The position in the air diving has a really strong technique and the judges look for really,
01:54very small points, like your hands have to be in a nice and straight position, your elbows,
01:59you know, not bent, your hands not like that, you know, like they look for really clean
02:03lines and clean technique as well.
02:06And then the water entry, it should be no splash.
02:16The main difference between a 10-meter Olympic dive and a 27-meter cliff dive is, well, besides
02:24the height, the speed that we reach is much, much higher.
02:28We're hitting the water at probably close to 90 kilometers an hour and because of that,
02:32the impact is much harder, so that, you know, creates a lot more risks for the diver.
02:45Cliff diving is the most important thing to me, you know, I enjoy every dive that I do.
03:03I'm ready to go.