Courtesy fina.org

With a commitment to delivering diving top events for athletes, here’s what’s to come in 2023: a compact three-city international tour that’s open to more athletes and more countries, as well as a revised competition format that brings improvements for athletes, fans and event hosts.

The World Aquatics Diving World Cup 2023 season will feature three events, with the annual series concluding with a Super Final as the competitive lead-in to the World Aquatics Championships - Fukuoka 2023.

The World Aquatics Diving World Cup 2023 event schedule:  

• 14-16 April, Xi'an (CHN)
• 5-7 May, Montreal (CAN)
• 4-6 August, Berlin (GER) – Super Final

The World Aquatics Diving World Cup 2023 season kicks off in the diving hotbed of Xi’an in central China. The host is no stranger to hosting international events, as China has held seven previous Diving World Cups, 14 editions of the Diving World Series and 13 Diving Grand Prix events, with Xi’an holding a trio of these Grand Prix’s from 2000-2002.

From Xi'an, the 2023 tour continues on to Montreal. Fresh off hosting the 24^th FINA World Junior Diving Championships 2022, Montreal also previously held three consecutive Diving World Series events (2018-2020).  

The Canadian competition venue is well-known in sporting circles, with the event taking place in the Montreal Olympic Pool, which has been in use since the city hosted the 1976 Olympic Games.

From Montreal, the 2023 tour concludes where last year's season also ended: in the German capital of Berlin for the World Aquatics Diving World Cup Super Final.

While the Diving World Cup 2022 marked the first time Berlin held this event, Germany has a long tradition of hosting aquatics events, including 20 consecutive editions of the Diving Grand Prix (2001-2020).

Berlin, meanwhile, has been a regular on the Swimming World Cup circuit, holding 19 events from 2000-2022, making the bustling city and SSE Swimming & Diving Hall the perfect place to close out the 2023 international diving season. 

Revised Diving Competition Format

Following this past summer’s World Aquatics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, a collection of coaches, former and current athletes, high-performance sports directors and World Aquatics staff met regularly to determine what, exactly, could be changed to help drive diving progress and development.

The findings call for a more inclusive diving events strategy, one open to athletes from all World Aquatics Member Federations – so long as athletes meet a minimum point standard. The goal is to get more athletes and countries competing in the World Aquatics Diving World Cup, thereby increasing the level of diving performance around the globe.

The competition format that will be used in the World Aquatics Diving World Cup has been reworked to create events shorter in duration, even with a larger pool of competing athletes.

Starting in 2023, the first two events will have a three-day competition programme comprised of two days of training, followed by a Preliminary-to-Final model for the individual events and a straight-to-final format for the synchronised and team events.

Previously, individual diving events progressed through three rounds: preliminary, semi-final, final.

Removing the semi-final round makes it easier and less costly for hosts to hold events. The new two-round competition system also lessens the physical wear-and-tear athletes face with the current system – a factor of athlete health and safety that shouldn’t be taken lightly in an impact sport that sees 10m platform divers hit the water at 50 km/h.

With the addition of a top-level diving event this past October in Berlin, Germany, World Aquatics brought these event format changes out on the field of play. The diving community expressed strong support for the competition changes.

“With the World Aquatics Diving Working Group, we took a holistic approach to review our sport for the maximum benefit to athletes, fans and event hosts alike,” said Jane Figueiredo, Great Britain coach and trainer to world champion and Tokyo 2020 gold medallist Tom Daley.

“We came into the project with a spirit of innovation and immersed ourselves in the work. I am sure the outcome will be well received by the divers and the greater sports community. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for our sport.”

Deepening the Diver Prize Purse

For the first two stages, athletes will earn prize money (5’000, 4’000, 3’000 USD) for podium finishes. The World Aquatics Diving World Cup Super Final will pay prize money from the 1^st to 12^th places in the individual events and from the 1^st to 8^th for the synchronised and team events.

The Super Final makes for a deeper athlete prize purse as the previous FINA Diving World Series paid prize money to the top 8 in all individual events and top 6 in the synchronised events.

Count Rio 2016 Olympic gold medallist and World Aquatics Athletes’ Committee Member Jack Laugher among those enthused with the upcoming diving event changes.

“I really felt the mojo with the Diving Working Group and where we are setting up the sport for the next years heading into the World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka and the Paris 2024 Games,” said Laugher.

“The future of our sport is bright. I’m excited about the upcoming changes we’ll see in diving. From the refinement of the competition format to having a deeper prize pool, we’re making this sport even more attractive for athletes. This gives me, my peers, and future generations more to aim for and achieve in this beautiful sport.”