Monday, Feb 28, 2022 • 29min
Game Changers: Standing on the edge of a cliff to realise your dreams - Rhiannan Iffland
Play Episode
Australian cliff diving sensation, Rhiannan “Rhi” Iffland has leapt from hot air balloons, helicopters and plunged into oceans all across the globe.
But even as a five time world series champion and two time FINA world champion, Rhi says she still experiences fear and sometimes it’s what keeps her safe.
Rhi began her cliff diving career with a stunning win. In her rookie year – 2016 – she won her first-ever competition as a wildcard entry into the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series.
Rhi was hailed as the 'Australian cliff diving sensation' – not only was she the youngest female diver ever to win an event, but she also scored podium places on all of her seven starts.
These achievements are the fruits of the hard work of an athlete who's been practising their sport from early childhood – Rhi began diving at the age of nine and before that she was an avid acrobatic trampolinist
Make sure you hit follow to be the first to hear the latest episodes.
Discover more about Beyond the Ordinary at redbull.com/beyondtheordinary.
Read more
Talking about
Speakers
(2)
Rhiannan Iffland
Marlee Silva
Transcript
Verified
Marlee Silva
00:06
I'm author and presenter Marlee Silva and in this miniseries Game Changers we'll hear stories from elite Australian athletes, Women at the top of their game. In this episode we're speaking with someone who's quite literally setting new heights in her sport.
Share
Rhiannan Iffland
00:28
It's a really really cool feeling. When you hit the water, everything just goes silent and then you realize, wow, that was awesome. I want to go back up and do it again.
Share
Marlee Silva
00:42
This is
Rhiannan Iffland
and that rush she's talking about is all just another day in the office for a self confessed adrenaline junkie. This is how she describes her job.Share
Rhiannan Iffland
00:51
Traveling around the world to some really, really spectacular places diving from cliffs, platforms, that 20-22 meters and for the men it's 27 to 28 a half meters. So yeah, it's quite a spectacular sport and visually it just looks amazing.
Share
Marlee Silva
01:12
Rhiannan
is an Australian cliff diving sensation. She won six world championship competitions, leapt from hot air balloons and helicopters, she's plunged into oceans, lakes and harbors, all across the globe. And get this: while she's at it, her body is traveling at more than 75 kilometers an hour. If I even picture myself standing at the kind of heights re jumps from it freaks me right out. So logically when I finally get to wrangle some time to sit down with Rhiannan
the first thing I want to know is I mean, who could do such a thing? Are all cliff divers massive adrenaline junkies.Share
Rhiannan Iffland
01:49
I would say there's not one diver on the series, it's not an adrenaline junkie. Yeah, we're a particular kind of person, for sure. Everybody has come from a diving athletic background and I guess like us cliff divers, it's kind of the next stage in our career. So most of us have come from show diving or like gymnastics or regular olympic style diving and I guess it's those athletes that are on the series that we want to push ourselves to the next level and add a little bit more risk to what we're doing before, I guess.
Share
Marlee Silva
02:19
In 2016,
Rhiannan
won her first ever competition as a wildcard entry into the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series
. Back then at 25 she was the youngest female to ever win at a cliff diving event and she finished in the top three in all seven of her dives. Years on from that first dive, Rhiannan
has traveled the world, training and competing and choosing her favorite spot, she says it's pretty hard to pin down.Share
Rhiannan Iffland
02:45
You know, this is the hardest question I get asked for sure, you know, people will say, what's your favorite location and it's really, really difficult to choose. A couple of years back I did a project in
the Northern Territory
up in Kakadu
in Nitmiluk gorge and that one is going to be hard to top, you know, just being at home in our own country, in our own backyard and it was really a surreal experience to be out there and diving in such a magical place.Share
Marlee Silva
03:12
In the current tool that you're on you're always diving into natural water, right? It's not your standard kind of pool that you see it say the olympics.
Share
Rhiannan Iffland
03:21
It really depends. So we have
the
Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series
which is generally a natural body of water, but actually you know, they do them everywhere. I mean we've dived like out of a restaurant balcony in Dubai
into a marina. We dive into rivers, we dive into the ocean. The sea, look, there's so many locations. It's very, very special. That's what I absolutely love about this sport and as an athlete you're always challenged with different things. It could be weather waves, you just never know what you're going to get at each brand new location.Share
Marlee Silva
03:55
You've also dived out of helicopters and done like crazy things like that. Are there any really unique ones that you think people would be surprised by?
Share
Rhiannan Iffland
04:05
Yeah, I've derived from helicopters. I think the hot air balloon project that I did earlier this year at home was, that was a surprise and that was the challenge. That was a really, really cool one. I also dived last year in an underground salt mine, was 120 m underground in a mine in
Romania
. This one was absolutely crazy. You know, everything was dark, it was cold. The water was 17% more dense than seawater. It was that salty. This was a crazy one. Never been done, you know, it was, we didn't know what to expect, so that probably would be one of the craziest ones. I've done definitely that after finishing that project doing that dive, I thought well I've never been so scared in my life.Share
Marlee Silva
04:52
That's interesting to hear, because I think that, as you mentioned earlier, you're a self proclaimed adrenaline junkie, but fear is a part of it, that I think people might be surprised to hear your face still. Are you afraid every time you dive still?
Share
Rhiannan Iffland
05:07
Yes, that's a plain and simple answer for me. Yes. Look, every time I go up on the platform, it always feels different. There was a time maybe two or three weeks ago, I was talking with my training partner, we were both standing on the 20m platform and this season I've done a lot more dives than I have in the previous seasons just because of where we've been training here in
Austria
and I turned to her and I said like "I feel like I should be more scared and more nervous than I am right now" and I was kind of standing there and feeling strange.Share
05:40
There's a part of me that thinks that the fear is what keeps me safe, it makes me keep my wits about me so that injuries don't come as easy, you don't do silly things. So yeah, I kind of explain it as like a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, you know one side is saying, yeah, go do it, do it all, do it all. And then the other side's going like no calm down, you shouldn't be up there. So yeah, it's a strange thing. It's not something that goes away, but it's something that gets, it gets easier to overcome it. And it's one of the things like all of the emotions and the fear standing on the top of the platform. Once you go through the water, everything goes silent and you know, you always think like, wow, I just overcame all of those feelings, overcame that fear and that felt amazing. So really it's one thing that keeps drawing me back to it and you know when you overcome that, you want to go up there and do it right again and you know for context, the dives that you do are immense.
Share
Marlee Silva
06:34
What is the tallest dive you've ever completed?
Share
Rhiannan Iffland
06:37
24 m at the moment? It was pretty high. I remember standing there going, "Oh my God, should I really be up here?" But we're diving at 20m to 22m usually, but once you get above 17m, 18 m, every meter Makes a difference, like with the impact the flight, we have to calculate the dive differently. So yeah, 24m the highest, but I'm hoping to push the like 25, in the coming years, wow.
Share
Marlee Silva
07:03
And how fast is your body traveling when you do a dive from that height.
Share
Rhiannan Iffland
07:08
I believe we hit the water around 77 km an hour and we slow down in a matter of a second when you hit the water. So the impact is quite strong. But when I explain it I usually tell people it's like equivalent to diving from 1/5 story of a building.
Share
Marlee Silva
07:25
It makes me feel nervous just hearing that.
Share
07:30
And the trick to cliff diving according to
Rhiannan
is to not let those nerves get the better of you.Share
Rhiannan Iffland
07:37
The higher you get and the more nervous you get, the harder it is to do because you know when when you're at that height you're simply just trying to control what's going on in your mind to make sure that everything goes well and yeah, you know, your shoulders are a bit more steer, if you're way more nervous, you have more adrenaline and it's kind of like there's a lot more danger up there.
Share
07:58
So I'm just kind of making sure that I'm going to do the right amount of somersaults, the right amount of twists and make sure that I'm landing perfectly vertical. Yeah, I think that's why it's really important that I'm training the lower heights and the technique there so that when I get up there it comes more naturally, what does that pre dive thinking look like, you know, are you listening to music?
Share
Marlee Silva
08:18
Are you picturing something in particular?
Share
Rhiannan Iffland
08:21
Yeah, I've learned a few things that I do, especially when competing, it's a lot of visualization, just going through the dive in your head, getting your mind and body ready for what it's about to do. I'm always listening to music if you know me as a person, you know that 70% of the day I'm humming a tune or I'm singing.
Share
08:41
So yeah, it's always music blasting in my ears, singing at the top of my lungs. Really trying to let out a lot of emotions through that music and through singing. But when I step on the platform, I actually, I use a lot of breathing and there's one thing that, that does pop to mind that I do all the time. I find myself closing my eyes.
Share
09:01
My niece, she has this little swimsuit with the tutu and I actually imagine her running down the beach in that tutu and just sending myself to a, to a happy place for, you know, a moment or so. And then yeah, opening my eyes, taking a deep breath and getting ready to go for the diet. Yeah, there's there's a few strange rituals, but they seem to work for me and all things that put me in a happy place in a good mood.
Share
Marlee Silva
09:26
Well you mentioned that once you get above around that 17 m height. Each meter on top of that is quite intense and there's a lot more to work on if you are gunning for that 25 26 m in the future, what parts of what you do do you have to focus on and work on to get there.
Share
Rhiannan Iffland
09:45
I think physically I would kind of prepare for it, just doing the repetitions, feeling as comfortable as possible on say 20-22 before I want to go up, but yeah, I think it would more just be building up the courage to actually step up there and give it a shot, giving it a shot is exactly what
Rhiannan
has been doing since she was a kid at the age of nine re started competing in diving and trampoline gymnastics and she probably didn't know it at the time, but it's all that hard work she did as a kid which has set such a solid foundation for the amazing career she has today, I was always such an outgoing kid, I tried every sport, my mom had me dancing for six years, that definitely wasn't for me, so they needed something a little bit more to put me into, it was really cool.Share
10:36
My trampoline coach at the time was working at my high school as well, I can remember being every single lunchtime at school in, at
Belmont High School
, bouncing around on the trampolines, I was in love with it, I loved it from a really young age and I always found it really fun and I liked the social aspect of it as well.Share
Marlee Silva
10:57
And you did grow up in a small coastal town called
Nords Wharf
near Newcastle
New South Wales
and grew up around surfing, no surprises there in that part of the world and apparently you're pretty good at that too was the early exposure to the ocean at a young age. Do you think that's helped with building that water confidence as you've grown into this career?Share
Rhiannan Iffland
11:19
Yes, I absolutely think it's definitely contributed. I mean if you grew up in a place like North Wharf, I started surf lifesaving nippers that maybe the age of four or five, it's just what we do there.
Share
11:32
And my grandfather actually used to call me his little water baby because when I was a kid it was hard to drag me out of the swimming pool or out of the lake or out of the out of the water, but thinking about it now, I was just at this event in
Ireland
and it was, it was really, really wavy, I was able to like read the conditions a lot better and to share that also with my fellow Australian diver as well.Share
Marlee Silva
11:55
So I think it's yeah, definitely contributed to the success I'm having today, yep, I even remember my formative years at nippers at age five of learning how to read the surf. So it's, it's cool to hear how that still is relevant for someone who does something, you know, as wild as what you do.
Share
12:13
So you started as a trampoline ist as you mentioned and that's what got you into diving and Around the age of 17, you would essentially almost on track for the olympic diving team. What what happened there?
Share
Rhiannan Iffland
12:28
Yeah, that was pretty close, but yeah, I was always kind of in fourth position and the one year that I was really close to making my, my first open national team, I had a little, little crash on 10 m and I think like I did, I lost a little motivation from that and I lost a lot of confidence from that event, it was an open nationals And yeah, everything just got a bit too repetitive for me at that age, you know, I was training like 11 or 12 sessions a week, a lot of hours and I kind of just fell out of love with the sport momentarily, so yeah, it kind of ended there, but I did have high hopes to try and make the olympic team to go for that, it's, it's what all athletes dream of, it's the pinnacle career, but unfortunately for me at that time it just wasn't meant to be, but you know, I don't regret any of the training or any of the work that I put in, I don't regret any of those days, they were amazing and they have shaped me and they formed me into the athlete that I am today, how did you keep returning to compete again and again when you get so close and just be outside the top, you know, what was it that drove you to do that or picked you back up when you fell down?
Share
13:38
I loved this body, it wasn't like the dream wasn't there anymore, I was still 17, 18, like I still had things to work towards.
Share
13:46
So I guess that kept me going, but you know, I just, I really loved the atmosphere, but I mean, I guess it's just you know, you commit to something for so long and that's what keeps you going in a way you say, okay, I've put all this hard work and I'm not going to let it fizzle out here, this is not who I am and I think that's what kept me going for sure.
Share
Marlee Silva
14:08
After always coming pretty close in Olympic style diving, but never quite making the top, it was time for something else. And like most things in life, it was simply taking a punt on a random job that shaped what happened next.
Share
Rhiannan Iffland
14:23
So I was then performing diving shows on cruise ships traveling around the the
Caribbean
and the mediterranean, Yep, it was a job as an aquatic acrobat on a cruise ship in her early 20s that changed the course of Ryan's life for good And that's where I was first introduced to high diving, which is diving above 10 m.Share
14:43
I had some fellow divers that I was working with and they were on
the
Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series
, Which I had obviously been following as a diver and yeah, I, I worked with them, had some fun for around 18 months like making the transition in the skills and playing around with a lot of different dives and building up the confidence to work my way up the ladder literally and uh yeah, I submitted a video and off I went, acrobat is certainly not a job description you hear very often when you were growing up, did it seem possible to you to have diving or acrobatics or all that sort of stuff as a career?Share
15:27
Uh no, not until I actually had the job on the cruise ship. Did I think that I was going to go much further, you know, there's always coaching to stay involved in the sport, like judging to still be, there is quite different to where I ended up today.
Share
15:46
Looking back now, I'm so glad I ended up where I did and everything for me kind of just, I'm really lucky because it all just fell into place and I started winning when I first got there.
Share
15:58
So I rolled with it and now I am so stoked at where I am today, it's just super cool to think like all of those years of hard work since I was what 9, 10 years old are now paying off and not only not only the work that I put in like my family as well, my mom and dad spent every single day driving me to and from the pool, my dad relocated from
Newcastle
to Sydney
so I was able to have the opportunity to train properly in Sydney
a couple of years ago when they were at the event in Italy
, they saw me first in an event there and they first saw it live and they had tears in their eyes after like it was just an incredible moment and it's something that I'll remember for a long time and so you switched to cliff diving after that stint on the cruise ship, what part of your training or what part of what you do with your body and that technique changes when you go from conventional diving to cliff diving a lot.Share
16:56
Actually I was lucky because I had the fundamentals and the basics from elite diving an elite diving background and I also had the fundamentals and the basics from an elite trampoline background, it's kind of a mix of the two skills really. So 10m diving, you are landing headfirst obviously, But once you get above 10-12m you don't want to be landing headfirst like that impact is just too much.
Share
17:23
That's where trampoline sports comes into it where so you have the diving technique on the takeoff and then you have the trampoline technique on the entry because usually we'll be landing headfirst coming out of a dive on 10m, but when we come out of a dive on on 20 then it's adding that extra rotation and that final skill from trampoline sports, which we call the Barani or a front somersault with a half twist, That's the main difference that I can point out.
Share
17:51
I also think not only technically, I think it's different mentally as well on 10 m, there's, you know, If something goes wrong, it's going to hurt on 20 m or 27 m there's really a consequence if something goes wrong.
Share
18:07
So I think it's a lot different mentally as well and you need to really train and work out how to I guess connect body and mind when you're up there. n Looking at Ryan and inaction now you'd never guess her career in cliff diving got off to a rocky start.
Share
Marlee Silva
18:25
In fact, in 2016 after competing at the final World Cup in
Abu Dhabi
, she nearly threw in the towel.Share
Rhiannan Iffland
18:31
It was my first event, you know, I was young, I was still really new to the sport, I was fresh and I didn't know how to control anything at all those thoughts, I didn't know how to connect it. I was just there, like I had the skills, I had the dives and I just wanted to go there and I wanted to show people what I could do, it didn't go so well, I got pulled out of the water by the scuba divers, I took a bit of a hit, definitely bruised my ego a lot. Yeah, my confidence was completely down.
Share
18:58
I was 100 points behind all of the other girls or the other divers. There was a moment after that where I said like, I don't think this is for me, I don't think I'm going to do it maybe, you know, I gave it a try. I like it a lot. I'm passionate about it, I want to be here, but I don't know if I if I can do it. It was a month before the first
Red Bull
, Cliff diving event in 2016 where I got the invitation to come as a wild card and I thought to myself, oh gosh, here we go again. You know, I was so nervous, I was so scared and we're actually on the way to the airport.Share
19:36
I decided to go and to to give it another crack. And you know, I was like, my cheeks were all red. Like, I was like, super nervous, super emotional in the car when my dad was dropping me off, he turned to me and he said, what's wrong with you?
Share
19:50
I'm like, I just let it all out. I went, I don't know if I want to go, I don't know if I can do it, I don't want to embarrass myself again and you know what my dad said to me, He turned to me and he said like, well, you can't do any worse than last time.
Share
20:02
So go there, embrace the moment, show them what Aussies are made of, go there, enjoy, enjoy the moment and just do it for you, give it another go and I went okay, I'm going to do that.
Share
20:13
So I really took those words to heart and I took them with me to compete and yeah, and it went really well, I started winning from there, so that was the first moment when I really went like wow, this sport is so empowering, you know, I've just overcome that moment where I thought I didn't want to continue and yeah, and then I won and it made me it changed me as a person that moment actually like I realized that I was a lot stronger than I thought I was.
Share
Marlee Silva
20:40
So yeah, ah there's nothing like a bit of wisdom from dad and it was just after this experience that
Rhiannan
won her first big event in 2016, Rhiannan
entered her first Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series
, she was a rookie, a wildcard entrant and against all odds, she won In fact Rihanna won five out of seven of those events in her first year and she puts it all down to a shift in her mindset, I had these girls, I knew that I had put the, I put the work in and that I could do it, but yeah, I definitely think it was very important for me to lean on all of the people that had been had been surrounded by in my previous diving and trampoline in career as well.Share
Rhiannan Iffland
21:21
So I spoke with my trampoline coach from when I was nine or 10 years old and he gave me some really good advice as well. So yeah, I think that was the main thing was, was shifting my mindset and and just trusting myself way more.
Share
Marlee Silva
21:36
So we get to 2019 after a few years of competing on the circuit and you had an undefeated season, which is pretty incredible.
Share
Rhiannan Iffland
21:45
What do you think made you so good in 2019 2018, I was fighting for the title, it was, you know, back and forth between the Mexican diver
Adriana Jimenez
, we were fighting for that title and I think like towards the end of that 2018 season I had gotten into a rhythm and I'd just become so hungry to win and to keep winning.Share
22:11
Yeah, that's kind of what drove me towards that, you know, I left the 2000 and 18 season and I went, okay, I'm gonna go and I'm going to train harder than ever, I'm going to enjoy it more than ever and I'm going to continue to ride this wave of confidence that I'm on.
Share
22:25
So yeah, I just like, as I went through the 2000 and 19 season, I just felt like I had a sense of how it was going to go each competition that I showed up to. Yeah, I just was on such a, such a role and in mentally, like I focused a lot more on what was going on upstairs and really worked on how to control all the feelings and everything like that.
Share
22:50
And I think that's, that was the main contributing factor, was just riding that wave of confidence, trusting myself and yeah, leaning a lot more on the people around me and taking in all the support and advice and yeah, that was really, really cool.
Share
Marlee Silva
23:05
Yeah, I think cool is probably an understatement. It's pretty phenomenal.
Share
Rhiannan Iffland
23:09
You kind of don't realize that it was actually possible until I got to that last event.
Share
Marlee Silva
23:13
It's something that every athlete kind of dreams of and not something that, that I thought I saw coming to be honest, it's such a niche sport, therefore imagine, you know, it's a pretty small cohort of people who do it alongside you. How have you built your relationships with your fellow competitors? Is it, is it quite tight on the, on the series? Like because it's people who can kind of relate to what you're going through.
Share
Rhiannan Iffland
23:38
Yeah, I mean, we're all like minded people and it is, it's a small community, the high diving world, we're all traveling the world together, we all can relate to the crazy things that we're doing, I guess. But at the end of the day, it's also a competition, so your friends but once you step on the platform it's like game on.
Share
Marlee Silva
23:58
Of course any sport comes hand in hand with injuries and a sport like cliff diving. Well the risk there are even greater for
Rhiannan
. It was competing in Bosnia in 2017 where she suffered a decent set back.Share
Rhiannan Iffland
24:12
It was a training dive. One of my most simple dives. My easiest dives and something just switched in my mind when I was mid air and I went kind of blank.
Share
24:21
And I hit the water and both of my knees just got pulled out from the river because the water is moving in the river it makes the impact that little bit harder and you really need to be a little bit more switched on with more tension going through the water and it pulled my knees straight out to the side and I had two MCL sprains. Thankfully it wasn't that bad but two legs at the same time is never, never a pleasant thing.
Share
24:50
But yeah I think I think it was it was a tough moment because I could have won the World Series then and there at that event if it hadn't gone well for me.
Share
Marlee Silva
24:58
So yeah how did you regroup after that?
Share
Rhiannan Iffland
25:04
Look that was that was tough and that's that's another another lesson that that I definitely learned because I had five weeks till the series final that we finished in chile and I just had to be on the top of the podium to take out that event, so mentally I had to be really strong because I had had no training, it was just recovery.
Share
25:27
Just rehabilitation, trying to get into a, into good enough shape to, to pull off that event. Yeah, I think it, it just took, it took a lot of time and a lot of focus on what was going on upstairs to to overcome it.
Share
Marlee Silva
25:40
But you know what, like injuries are, are inevitable in any sport and overcoming that just makes you a stronger athlete, You've gone from strength to strength in your cliff diving, what do you think is the biggest change you've seen in yourself during your professional life so far?
Share
Rhiannan Iffland
25:58
I definitely want to say self confidence, I've really learned how to switch on and off, I guess that sounds like really, that sounds really strange, but I found that I have this switch in my mind that if I need to do something, even in general life, if I switch it on then I do it and if I'm not then I'm quite blase and quite chill and relaxed, so yeah, just feeling like a more confident version of myself and you know, I guess learning how to deal with all the fear and all the emotions and everything that's involved in the sport has helped me shape me as a person overall what's your greatest challenge as a professional athlete?
Share
26:41
My greatest challenge. I think it's like jumping off that platform every single time. No, in the beginning, I know I've said that that I love facing those fears, But in the off season we take a really long break. So like 34, even up to five months without going up to those heights and only training on 10 m. So I think the greatest challenge is relearning everything at the beginning of the season. It's a really difficult thing.
Share
Marlee Silva
27:13
We've talked about how, you know, it's a scary sport, I think that's pretty clear by now and that you are not immune to that fear and particularly fear of getting it wrong, but how do you use fee and adrenaline to your advantage?
Share
Rhiannan Iffland
27:28
That's a difficult question to answer.
Share
27:33
It is what keeps me safe.
Share
27:35
I'm always focusing a lot on my breathing and just making sure that I'm present in the moment. You know, making sure that all of my senses are kind of kind of activated through those breaths and through all those years it's actually, you can embrace it. It's actually a really nice feeling and you get to enjoy it.
Share
Marlee Silva
27:56
So I'm sure there's a lot of people who hear about the fear that you face every time you dive and probably wonder why do you do it and why is cliff diving this love and the thing that you love to do you know the Travel adventure, the locations we visit, the people are surrounded by.
Share
Rhiannan Iffland
28:17
It's just everything. It's a real combination, you know, in mixing my pattern for the sport of diving and passion for adventure.
Share
28:26
Yes, the perfect combination.
Share
28:30
And what would you say to a young woman who might look up to you or might want to get into the sport, Start with the basics, work on your basics, work on your fundamentals, get everything correct, most of all keep enjoying it, have fun with what you're doing, have fun with the training and you keep chipping away because no dream is too big.
Share
Marlee Silva
28:50
I've learned that from myself, going through my career, trust the people around you, let them help you and yeah, enjoy the ride from a tiny human jumping on a trampoline to an extreme sports sensation on the world stage with a bit of hard work, the right mindset and a nudge from dad,
Rhiannan
has proven that when it comes to achieving her dreams, the sky's the limit.Share
29:21
I'm Marlee Silva your host and this is Neyond The Ordinary, a
Red Bull
podcast. Follow us on Spotify, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, you can discover more about game changes at Red Bull. com/gamechanges.Share
Add podcast
🇮🇹 Made with love & passion in Italy. 🌎 Enjoyed everywhere
Build n. 1.38.1
Marlee Silva
Rhiannan Iffland