PARIS, France — A lineup of divers is looking to take home some medals on Wednesday, with the women's synchronized diving 10m platform final. The competition will see athletes from China, the United States, Canada, Ukraine, France, North Korea, Mexico and Great Britain.
However, diving can be a complicated competition. Its scoring system may be hard to understand for many people. To learn more about the competition, keep reading below.
What are the diving events at the Olympics?
There are eight diving events at the Olympics. Dives are performed from either the three-meter springboard or the 10-meter high dive. Individual and synchronized events for men and women take place at both heights.
The three-meter springboard allows divers to jump higher into the air as part of their dive. Divers make their high dive from a stable ten-meter (33-foot) platform.
- 3m springboard (men's and women's)
- 10m platform (men's and women's)
- Synchronized 3m springboard (men's and women's)
- Synchronized 10m platform (men's and women's)
How is Olympic diving scored?
All dives are scored by a panel of judges, which rate the execution of every dive on a scale of 1 - 10. The number of judges varies depending on whether it is a synchronized or individual event.
During individual events, a panel of seven judges submit their scores. The highest two scores and lowest two scores are eliminated, leaving only three scores by which divers are evaluated. Those scores are then added together to determine a diver's execution score. The execution score is then multiplied by the dive's difficulty ranking, which then results in a diver's total score.
Judges examine divers' starting positions and approaches, their take-offs, their flights and how well they enter the water. Every judge's score must reflect their evaluation of divers' performances in those four categories.
During synchronization events, there is a panel of 11 judges. Three of those judges focus on scoring an individual diver, while another trio focuses on the other diver. The remaining five judges score how well the pair synchronized their dives.
The median score is used for each individual's dive, and the middle three scores are used to evaluate the synchronization score. Those five scores are then added together and are multiplied by 0.6 before being multiplied by the dive's degree of difficulty.
These judges take into account the same four categories when evaluating diver performances, as well as the comparative distance from the board when they entered the water and how close the divers were at entering the water at the same time.
A good score is considered to be at least 7.
