How Do You Qualify For Olympic Diving? (LA28 Rules)

There is a 2-step structure to getting an Olympic spot.

First, individuals have to compete to grant qualification for their country at specific meets leading up to the Olympics.

Then, divers compete for those slots at their national trials (if applicable).

The weird thing is, a diver could qualify their country a place in the Games, but still not go if they are injured or underperform at their national qualifying event.

Learn how diving is scored here!

The LA28 pathway

World Aquatics and the IOC have confirmed the qualification system for Los Angeles 2028. There are 136 athlete places across the eight diving events.

Each event has 34 individual athletes, or eight synchronized teams. A country can enter a maximum of two individual divers per diving event and one synchro team per event.

Places are won in three stages:

Stage one, the 2027 World Aquatics Championships in Budapest. The top eight finishers in each event earn quota places for their country, with no more than two per country.

Stage two, continental championships. The highest ranked diver who hasn't already qualified earns a place from each continent.

Stage three, the Diving World Cup Stops 1 and 2 in 2028. Remaining places, including the synchronized teams, are determined here.

Then there are Trials

Like I said above, for many countries including the USA, earning the country a spot and earning yourself a spot are different problems.

The United States runs Olympic Trials, and that's where the roster actually gets decided. You can be the diver who won the quota place at Worlds and still not go, if someone beats you at Trials.

It's a brutal format, but the Trials run over the course of three days to theoretically minimize that risk.
Divers do their competition list three separate times, so if somebody has an amazing first day but isn't as consistent after that, they may not make the team.

What the path actually looks like

If you're a young diver reading this and wondering what it takes:

• Club diving through age group competition
• Junior nationals and national-level age group meets
• Senior nationals
• National team selection
• International assignments: World Cup, World Championships
• Olympic Trials

That's the most likely scenario. There is a small possibility that a diver may not get the international assignment but still wins Trials and therefore goes to the Olympics.

It is rarer, but technically possible.

- DG