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The Australian reflects on the pressure of staying at the top, the demands of a stronger field and how she has kept raising the bar across a decade of success.
Rhiannan Iffland will be crowned Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series champion for an historic 10th consecutive time at this weekend’s 2026 finale in Polignano a Mare, completing a decade of dominance in one of sport’s most physically and mentally demanding disciplines.
The Australian arrived on the World Series as a wildcard in 2016 and won on debut. Ten seasons later, she has 48 World Series victories – the most by any diver in the competition’s history – five World Aquatics High Diving World Championship titles and three unbeaten World Series seasons to her name.
Those numbers underline the scale of Iffland’s run, but staying there has required far more than simply repeating what worked before.
From the 21-metre platform, where precision, control and commitment have to come together in seconds, the challenge has been to keep performing as the standard of women’s cliff diving has continued to rise around her.
That places Iffland in a rare category of athletes for whom the task is no longer simply reaching the top, but finding ways to remain there year after year – a dynamic familiar from athletes such as Swedish pole vaulter Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis and Slovenian sport climber Janja Garnbret, who keep raising the benchmark in their respective fields.
For Iffland, 10 consecutive titles are therefore not just a measure of winning, but of sustaining the mindset, preparation and competitive edge required to remain the athlete everyone else is chasing.
Ahead of receiving her 10th King Kahekili Trophy in Polignano, Iffland reflects on the demands of a decade at the top, how her approach has evolved, the expectations that come with long-term success, and what still drives her to keep setting the standard.
Q&A
Q: Ten consecutive World Series titles! No one in cliff diving has done this before. When you stop and take that in, what does it mean to you?
Rhiannan Iffland: In any sport, that is really an incredible feat. It takes a lot over 10 years to stay at the top of your sport, mentally and physically. If I look back to when I first began my career in 2016, it’s actually a crazy thought to me that I would still be at the top of my chosen sport.
I haven’t really let it sink in until the final in Polignano is done and dusted, but I guess it just brings me a real sense of pride. The fact that I achieved something that challenged me every single day is really a special thing. I’m absolutely thrilled, and I am glad that I took the opportunity ten years ago to chase after some wild dream or career idea that I had. I’ve exceeded my expectations, and I’m so happy and proud of myself.
What does it look like day-to-day? It’s having a drive to show up, even if you’re not feeling a hundred percent, just to be there and to give something. I think for me, over the years, it’s been making sure that I consistently put in work and effort and still find the joy in the sport, still have fun.
Q: You’ve said the recipe is passion, drive and hard work. What does that actually look like day to day, and has the way you prepare changed over the years?
Rhiannan Iffland: Passion and drive are still the anchor of my training and my day-to-day within the sport. Over the 10 years, I’ve kept chasing new ideas, finding ways to train, to stay passionate, and testing myself in different ways. Especially in a sport like cliff diving, the possibilities are endless with locations and different dives, while still playing and having fun outside of competition.
Things have changed over the years. I’m not getting any younger. The way that I train now is way different from five years ago, because sometimes your body just doesn’t keep up with your mind. Sometimes that passion gets in the way because you’re really trying to push somewhere where your mind is, but your body just doesn’t follow the same way it used to.
Q: After 10 titles, how do you keep pushing the standard higher as the field around you gets stronger?
Rhiannan Iffland: There’s really no other recipe than hard work and consistency. I draw my success back to the fact that I have stayed in the sport for 20 years. I have woken up every single day. I don’t think there is really an off day because you’ve always got that voice in your head thinking, could I be doing something, or is there something more that I could be doing?
Practice, practice, practice makes perfect. Obviously it’s gotten harder over the years because the women’s field is getting stronger and stronger, and the gap is definitely narrowing. That’s a brilliant thing. I think it also drives me because I do wanna stay in this sport and see where it goes for the women.
I was kind of one of the pioneers at the beginning many years ago. And I don’t wanna step out now, I wanna be a part of where it goes next.
Q: What’s the hardest part of competing so consistently at this level that people on the outside wouldn’t guess?
Rhiannan Iffland: It’s most definitely the pressure that you put on yourself each time to perform. If you’re constantly at the top of the field, then even a second place can feel like a disappointment, even though within myself I know that it’s not because I’m proud of everything that I’ve done already. I guess that’s a real mind game, because a second place is amazing, but then you may be a little bit disappointed in yourself. Sometimes I step back, and I go, “Hang on a minute, why am I disappointed in that? That was an incredible result and an incredible performance.” I would say that’s the hardest thing to personally deal with, the ups and downs.
I think it’s harder to stay at the top than to chase it. I’d also say that having that target on your back is not always the nicest thing. Sometimes it gets lonely at the top, but that’s just how it is.
Q: Staying with that idea of it getting lonely at the top, what does that loneliness actually look like for you?
Rhiannan Iffland: You put a lot of effort in, and sometimes I find myself really being in my own head, trying to continue to chase the performance and the level that I want. I’ve also spent a lot of time between competitions travelling by myself. I may need to stay by myself somewhere just to allow myself to be the best diver I can be.
When you have the target on your back, when you’re constantly winning each competition, the relationships change. Over the years, I felt that a little bit. Everyone wants that top spot, so that’s just the reality of it.
A lot of the time it wouldn’t even be intentional. Everybody goes there with a goal, and everybody has that same goal to achieve, and you compete against each other to try and achieve it. I don’t think it’s ever an intentional thing.
Q: Is it difficult to accept that you can’t always do as much as your mind wants you to? How do you overcome that?
Rhiannan Iffland: I feel like I’m just starting to feel that over the last couple of years. If I try and do a similar training schedule to what I used to do, I find that the injuries start popping up quicker and quicker. Sometimes you want to set goals that are huge, but physically it’s like, OK, no, I’m not 21 anymore. I need to take it a bit slower and work step by step.
I’m not very good at acknowledging it. Sometimes I push way too hard when I shouldn’t and ignore the little injuries. In the last year, I’ve learned that I need to listen to my body and quiet the mind a little bit, because oftentimes when my mind is so busy and I’m thinking so much about how much training I want to do and what I want to achieve, the way to quiet that is to go really hard physically and to do more dives, more repetitions, to try different things.
Over the next couple of years, it’s going to be about finding the balance and shifting the way that I train a little bit.
Q: After ten years and hundreds of dives, what still goes through your mind in the seconds before you take off?
Rhiannan Iffland: Hundreds of dives. I think they all still feel like the first one, to be honest. In the beginning, it was harder to control what was going on in my mind. Now it comes a bit more naturally because I’ve done them so many times and understand what’s going to happen in my head before I get there.
It’s usually just technical things. When I stand at the end of the platform, it’s the most silent time. That’s when you try to let everything else go and just focus on what actually needs to be done – a few key points from the dive. It’s a very silent moment.
Q: Has there ever been a moment where your passion for the sport wavered, and if so, what pulled you back?
Rhiannan Iffland: I would say once a year there are moments where my passion for the sport wavers. The biggest thing that draws me back is taking a step back and looking at my world from the outside in, reminding myself how much I love what I do and how proud I am of the life and career that I’ve created for myself.
I’m not a big goal setter. I don’t like to set huge goals, I like to set small ones on the way to that big goal. They can be the smallest things, like technical things you want to work on, new dives, or new challenges – just trying to relight the passion.
Q: Do you still doubt yourself as a diver, and when do those doubts tend to creep in?
Rhiannan Iffland: I don’t think I really have many moments where I actually doubt myself. Maybe I doubt things that I am capable of. Now that I have many years of experience, I don’t really doubt myself as a diver, but I question my capabilities as I’ve gotten older and gone through 10 seasons.
The moments I doubt myself more are when I’m away from the pool or the platform. It might be one bad training session, and you question everything that you’ve done in the lead-up to the competitions. That’s probably when the doubts creep in most. Sometimes I’ll think that I’m a bit of a fraud – like, how did I achieve 48 wins?
But I think it’s just the process that you go through when you’re trying to improve every single day. Over time, with experience, you understand that’s just the way your brain is going to work.
Q: As you head to Polignano with the title wrapped up, do you ever think about the role you’ve played in raising the level of women’s cliff diving?
Rhiannan Iffland: I do think about that a lot. I was one of the pioneers of the sport, along with a lot of other girls who started 10 years ago or more, and I think you do need that one trailblazer to step up the level.
The level is rising a lot in the women’s field, and I’m so happy to have been a part of it. It’s such an empowering sport, and I’m stoked.
