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What Is A Dive List?

A dive list is the sheet you hand in before a meet declaring exactly which dives you'll do and in what order.

You submit it, it gets entered, and then you're locked to it (usually).

The announcer reads from it, the judges know what's coming, and if you perform something different you score zero.

What's on it

Each line is one dive, and it carries:

  • The dive number and position letter, like 105B (front 2.5 pike)
  • The degree of difficulty for that dive on that board

Depending on the level, the list has to satisfy requirements: a certain number of dives, a mix of voluntaries and optionals, and coverage across the dive groups so you can't just do six forward dives.

Building one takes good strategy

Depending on your level and what type of competition you are in, there are different strategies to putting together a list.

At the professional level, there are no cuts until all dives are completed, so ordering their dives for front-loaded strengths isn't necessary, but having a lower nerve dive is typically the goal to start off with.

Some high level divers like to sandwich their "bad dives" in the middle so they can get momentum in the beginning, and if things go poorly, they have a strong finish with a dive they feel confident with under pressure.

In high school competitions there are more rules to follow, and structuring a list becomes like a gymnastics routine or dance routine, where the sequence can flow, or feel choppy, depending on how you put it together.

A few other things I'd think about:

Difficulty you can't hit isn't difficulty. A 3.0 dive that goes wrong scores worse than a 2.4 dive that goes right. The DD only pays off if the execution shows up. Chasing difficulty you haven't secured in practice is the most common way divers lose meets.

Order matters more than people think. You want to start with something that settles you down, not something that can rattle you for the rest of the session.

Consistency compounds. Diving scores are cumulative across the whole list. One disaster is very hard to recover from, so a list of dives you are confident with tends to beat a list of dives you're hoping for.

Changing it

There's usually a deadline before the session after which the list is frozen, and the specifics vary by level and meet.

In many competitions you can change your dive on the board. This has been seen in the last round where a diver will change their dive to a harder dive in order to go for the win.

I wouldn't plan on changing it. Build the list you intend to do, and if you're deciding between two versions of a dive on the morning of the meet, that's a sign the harder one probably isn't ready.

Other things you're probably wondering

- DG

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