Mastermind of the dive: Coach Lapointe’s formula for cliff diving success

It was a hard moment, but, for me, it was life-changing in terms of my job and also how I do that job. It really took perspective away from results and more on the journey, putting the athletes up front and making sure they appreciate what they do. You know, there are so many examples of Olympians or Stanley Cup champions who just had negative souvenirs of their career, you know? They’re like, 'Oh we pushed and pushed to get this, we got it', but they don’t remember how hard it was. My new philosophy in coaching with high diving is making sure they remember how fun the journey is.

There’s a part that's similar, which is the planning – making sure we have a manual plan and we follow where the training camps and competitions are, when we need to get ready, what our physical and technical goals are, and also strategic in terms of the dives we're choosing. The very different part is that high diving is a risky sport – dangerous and scary. My way of coaching high diving is to make sure we're doing it the safest way possible.

I want the athletes to know that they’re safe when they go in for a new dive, even if they know what they’re doing. Yes, it's going to be scary, mostly in terms of conditions. You never know what to expect, you never know what the view's going to be, the waves, the temperature, the general weather.

The mental aspect of the sport is really, really important. It's important to talk about and it's important to plan it. That’s the biggest difference for me compared to other sports. With high diving the margin of error is tiny, you know? You can't belly-flop from that height, so we have to make sure we get it right from the first repetition.

Yes, actually. The mental aspect. Athletes are going to be more emotional or more nervous if they’re tired, so, the day before the event, generally they will do basically nothing. Usually, it will be a Friday, so I call it ‘Friday Fun Day’, so when I send them their plan, they’ll see that and know they can just relax, have fun and think of something else. That’s calming.

In many sports, the day before often drilling repetitions to make sure the next day they’re ready. I think it needs to be the opposite, you know? The training is done. You’ve arrived at a competition and you’re ready or you had a couple of practices, but the day before is to rest, have fun and calm your mind so that you arrive with an optimal mindset on the day of the competition.

The number of repetitions they do up there is something we always think about and count. They can't do a lot. In one day of practice they'll do a maximum of three to four reps and in a week it's a maximum of 10 reps. That's something that's always on our minds. With that plan, my athletes are not injured regularly, which is good because I want them to be able to do their sport as long as they want.

Many divers started high diving out of the circus and there was no proper training like there is right now, so they were doing maybe 10-12 repetitions in a day and just going for it. Many of them quickly suffered injuries and didn't last long in the sport, so I'm really trying to count the repetitions that we do in a day, a week, a year. I'm always counting. For sure, resting after competition for sure is also important, with no high dives for at least a week if the competition circuit allows.

High diving is always different. Sometimes you land in a river, sometimes you land in a creek. You dive from a bridge, a cliff, a platform. It's unbelievable the different types of environments we have to adapt to, so that’s why the dives they are doing need to be solid, so we can adapt to the different conditions. If you arrive at one of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series events and you're scared of your dives, you’re not going to survive the competition and that's the difference between the stronger, consistent athletes and the other ones.

Well, one thing is that it's such a high-emotion sport. When you come to a competition the view is always amazing, the challenge. A Red Bull Cliff Diving competition is like a show, it’s crazy. You can have like 80,000 spectators cheering for you, then the competition ends and the next day you go back home.

Three days later, you're back at your regular diving pool, so motivation is the biggest challenge I have to face with the athletes, because they go from such a high. In a way, they’re always going to be looking for that high, but it's not always like that. So, when an athlete starts training with me, it's something we need to talk about: 'It’s not always a high and it’s okay'.

Coming back to lonely practice, there will be low motivation, so this is when I incorporate games, fun warmups and stuff like that to just make sure they find training as fun as the thrill of a competition. For me, was my biggest challenge at first, dealing with the change of motivation. I think I can now keep it more level with experience, talking about it and with them being okay with having lows sometimes.

In Montreal, we started at the Olympic stadium and we have a 20m platform there. It was a big tool and after a year we decided to develop the junior program, but the juniors can't go off of the 20m platform, they’re too young and aren’t developed yet. So, we built 12m and 15m platforms at the Olympic pool too and now in my group I have five juniors developing, and at some point they'll move up. I already have a 16-year-old male who is doing a 27m list and will be introduced to the senior level soon.

We started with building a senior program and having a full group, and now we're on to some juniors who're training and diving full-time. Once or twice a week they come with me and develop some high diving skills, because they are interested in that. Montreal also hosted the junior world championships on 12m and 15m platforms a year ago, which was very exciting. The next part is having more people doing it, more countries doing it and that’s how we're going to get to the Olympics.

I think there are some that have it from the beginning, for sure. Aidan Heslop is a good example. He's a parkour guy, he's a twisting guy and he's been jumping off cliffs since he was probably six years old. He was made to do this. Molly is the opposite, she's not a risky girl, she wasn't the type to go cliff jump. So, I think you can have it, but you can develop it. It's not like you have it or you don't – there’s no specific profile.

It used to be it was people out of the circus, a very specific type of people who liked the challenge, but it's getting less and less like this and becoming more approachable for everyone. If you watch diving at the Olympics, pretty much everyone is doing the same list, the same dives. With high diving, it's a lot more about competitors personality and skills, so there are many different dives.

When I work with an athlete, I need to know what their strengths are, who they are and they need to show it in their dives. There are many, many different dives and since it's so high on the platform, they need to do what they are comfortable with. Aidan is a twister, Molly is not a twister. I have to consider that. I can't ask them to do dives they don’t feel comfortable with. It's not achievable.

Developing dives is a lot about their strengths, but also their personalities. I like when they’re showing who they are in the air – it’s an artistic sport. I see it a little bit like painting or something. It's cool, it’s risky and it’s hard technically, they’re doing a lot of flips, but it needs to also represent them personally.

First would be to surround yourself with people who believe in you and believe you can do it. That's the most important thing because the journey is crucial. Molly is a good example. She started high diving and documented everything she did from her first high dive to her being on top of the podium. She believed in it when people were like. 'Well, we’ll see how she does, it’s a new sport'.

She believed in it from the beginning and, you know, she has the hashtag #bravegang. She’s big on bringing mental health forward and that's a little how I see it, too. Be brave, talk about it and surround yourself with people that believe in it. Go find opportunities to do that sport if that’s what you want to do – and ask questions.

I’m always open if people want to go through Instagram and ask me questions, I can lead them the right way depending on where they live and what they do. Believing in it is the biggest thing, though. You can do whatever you want to achieve with the right people around you.