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Growing up on NSW’s Central Coast, Rhiannan Iffland thought she might join the police force.
“I just wanted to give something back, and be in an exciting position to be out and proactive,” she recalls.
Instead, she found herself in arguably far more thrilling positions as a world cliff diving champion, recently clinching her sixth Red Bull cliff-diving series in Italy, then the event’s inaugural Sydney leg.
“In the beginning, it was a shock because I went in as the rookie and walked away with the world series title, as the years go by it becomes more surprising because I have held onto it for six years,” the 31-year-old says.
A pioneer in her sport, Iffland is in it for the long haul: “High diving is a sport that most divers get into a fraction older because you have to go through fundamentals and diving skills before you dive at 20 or 22 metres. Some of my idols that have gone through to 45, As long as I can keep up and keep doing it, I’ll be there and fighting.”
Learning to dive at the age of nine, Iffland was supported by her family to train at the NSW Institute of Sport until she burnt at 19. When she was offered a job to work on cruise ships as an aquatic acrobat she saw her first high dive and learnt more about the Red Bull cliff diving series.
“I had been following it when the women were introduced, around 2013, and everything about it was drawing me in,” she says of the sport she refers to as “rock and roll diving”.
Olympic divers compete on three and 10 metre boards, judged on takeoff, the execution of the dive and water entry. Cliff diving is judged the same, however the height is 20 or 22 metres.
“The difference for me lies in the mental side of it, the extremities that come with it. How much more …I don’t want to say the word danger, but there’s more risk involved,” Iffland says.
“I was clearly still passionate about diving and I still felt like I had unfinished business. I was 21 when I was introduced [to cliff diving] and I just wanted to align myself with that sort of sport where you face your fears. It’s scary and it feels amazing to overcome so many things in such a short period of time, and the location and travel and thrill of it all.”
Iffland spends the European summers competing and in the off-season she is home and training six days a week.
Her October victory in Sydney still feels surreal.
“I had wrapped up the world series title at the penultimate stop [in Italy] and I had been waiting for the moment [to compete on home soil] for the last five years,” she says.
“There was a lot of pressure and nerves being in front of a home crowd and knowing there were so many eyes on me and you have three seconds to perform at your utmost best. But on the platform I felt the energy of the people, my friends and family. The only thing I thought was, ‘This is amazing, this is your moment, get out there, do it and enjoy it’.”
Iffland says fear is a natural reaction to standing 22 metres above the water, and her own fears have changed with time.
“In the beginning of my career there were a lot of different fears, more external, like people are judging me, the judges are there, I don’t want to mess up and make a fool of myself…They have gone now as I have grown into who I am now,” she says.
“I am not scared of the height up there, it’s more the fear of impact. We hit the water at 82kms an hour, roughly, so sometimes that is what takes over: how the dive will go, the impact, the risk of being disoriented in rotations, all those thoughts kick over then I play out the what-ifs, just rationalise it.”
The thrill and challenge of her sport keeps Iffland committed.
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“The feelings you get on the platform … to pull off a dive and know you nailed a dive you were fretting about, that draws me back to the sport,” she says.
Iffland says it has been exciting to see her sport, originally dominated by men, open up to women in 2013.
She describes it as “pretty cool” that women in her sport now also get the same pay and opportunities as men.
“Everything changed for us at the end of 2019, we had to wait a year to compete [COVID closed the series in 2020], that was a really special moment for us, not only the pay gap being closed but we had the same amount of competitions,” she says.
“It was special to see because a few of us went through the first seasons and we saw it all change. It’s opened up opportunities for us to push the sport, because it’s a nice sport and will give more opportunity for more women to come in and showcase what females can do.”
Business, news and feature reporter.
Business, news and feature reporter.
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