Physical Education

Unit - 8

8.1.8.4.Entry
The rules state that the body should be vertical, or nearly so, for entry. The arms must be beside the body for feet-first dives, which are typically competed only on the 1m springboard and only at fairly low levels of competition, and extended forwards in line for "head-first" dives, which are much more common competitively. It used to be common for the hands to be interlocked with the fingers extended towards the water, but a different technique has become favored during the last few decades. Now the usual practice is for one hand to grasp the other with palms down to strike the water with a flat surface. This creates a vacuum between the hands, arms and head which, with a vertical entry, will pull down and under any splash until deep enough to have minimal effect on the surface of the water (the so-called "rip entry"). Once a diver is completely under the water they may choose to roll or scoop in the same direction their dive was rotating to pull the splash away from the channel that they have just created.