SYDNEY — Canadian women finished second and third in the Red Bull Cliff Diving Series after the eighth and final stop of the season.
Australian Rhiannan Iffland won the Sydney event Sunday, and came out on top for the season, winning the King Kahekili Trophy for the eighth straight time. Canadians Molly Carlson and Simone Leathead placed second and third overall in the season.
Carlson did not compete in Sydney due to a knee injury but had enough points to retain second spot. The 26-year-old from Thunder Bay, Ont., who now makes her home in Montreal, helped out with the broadcast of the event, held against the backdrop of the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge.
Carlson has finished runner-up to Iffland the last three seasons
Leathead placed second in the Sydney event ahead of Ukraine's Nelli Chukanivska, a 17-year-old wild-card entry who celebrated her first podium. That moved the 21-year-old from Montreal into third place overall, earning her a full-time spot in the field next season by virtue of being in the top four of the season standings.
Britain's Aidan Heslop, Carlson's boyfriend, finished atop the men's season standings after a fifth-place finish in Sydney. He had finished runner-up in the standings the last two seasons.
Ukraine's Oleksiy Prygorov won the Sydney event.
Carlson attended Florida State on a diving scholarship and was named diver of the year in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) in 2017 and 2020. She then moved to Montreal, drawn by the Olympic Sports Centre's 20-metre diving platform, and started high-diving training under coach Stephane Lapointe.
As a cliff diver, Carlson hits the water at speeds of 65 to 70 km/h.
The Red Bull Series sees competitors make four dives at each event. The men dive from a platform 27 metres above the water and the women from 21 metres.
In Sydney, competitors had to deal with challenging wind gusts for the final round, prompting several divers to step back and await the wind to die down.
The 2024 season included stops in Athens, Boston, Polignano a Mare (Italy), Causeway Coast (Northern Ireland), Oslo, Montreal, and Antalya (Turkey).
Carlson won in Athens and Montreal with Iffland taking the other six events.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 10, 2024
The Canadian Press