Copyright © 2026 OyList. All Rights Reserved.
Share
Items18
1
Pat McCormick (diver)
Born
McCormick won both springboard and platform gold at Helsinki 1952 and again at Melbourne 1956, the first diver to complete the double-double. She trained dives then considered too dangerous for women, and won with them because her control on entry was as good as her difficulty. Melbourne came just months after giving birth, which underlines how solid her technique was.
More about Pat McCormick (diver)2
Klaus Dibiasi
Born
Dibiasi is still the only diver to win the same Olympic event three times running, platform gold in 1968, 1972 and 1976, after silver in 1964. Italy had no proper diving facilities, and he trained outdoors in all seasons, yet his entries were famously clean and consistent across all three Games. His final win in Montreal, over the rising Greg Louganis, marked the handover between two eras.
More about Klaus Dibiasi3
Greg Louganis
Born
Louganis won springboard and platform gold at both Los Angeles 1984 and Seoul 1988, and in Los Angeles he became the first diver to score more than 700 points in a platform final. The Seoul springboard win came after he struck his head on the board in the preliminaries and returned to dive with stitches. He combined the era's hardest dives with entries and body lines that judges consistently placed above everyone else.
More about Greg Louganis4
Gao Min (diver)
Born
Gao won Olympic springboard gold at Seoul 1988 and Barcelona 1992 and went unbeaten in major springboard competitions for years, the first Chinese diver to dominate the board as completely as Louganis dominated the men's events. She was the first woman to score over 600 points on springboard, a mark of both her difficulty and her execution, and she laid the foundations for China's springboard dynasty.
More about Gao Min (diver)5
Fu Mingxia
Born
Fu won the 1991 world platform title aged 12, a result that later led the sport to raise its minimum age, then Olympic platform gold at Barcelona 1992. She went on to win springboard and platform at Atlanta 1996 and springboard again at Sydney 2000. Winning on both the 10m tower and the 3m board, which reward different take-offs and rotations, shows a completeness few divers have matched.
More about Fu Mingxia6
Dmitri Sautin
Born
Sautin won Olympic medals at five consecutive Games from 1992 to 2008, eight in all, including platform gold at Atlanta 1996 and synchronised springboard gold at Sydney 2000. He was among the first to perform some of the highest-tariff dives of the 1990s on both board and tower, and his longevity across the arrival of synchronised diving is a strong test of all-round quality.
More about Dmitri Sautin7
Guo Jingjing
Born
Guo was the dominant springboard diver of the 2000s, winning individual and synchronised 3m gold at both Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008 and ten world titles. Springboard rewards timing with the board's flex more than raw height, and her hurdle and take-off were so consistent that she rarely needed the highest tariff list to win. Her synchro partnership with Wu Minxia set the template for China's dominance of the event.
More about Guo Jingjing8
Wu Minxia
Born
Wu won synchronised 3m gold at four straight Olympics, from Athens 2004 to Rio 2016, the only diver to win the same event at four Games, and added individual springboard gold at London 2012. Synchro is judged on matching timing and entry as well as each diver's execution, and her ability to mirror two different partners precisely over 12 years is an underrated skill in itself.
More about Wu Minxia9
Matthew Mitcham
Mitcham's final dive in the Beijing 2008 platform final, a back two and a half somersault with two and a half twists, was one of the most difficult on the list and earned four perfect 10s, at the time the highest-scoring single dive in Olympic history. It took him from second to gold and stopped China sweeping every diving event at their home Games. The perfect case of tariff and execution peaking at the same moment.
More about Matthew Mitcham10
Alexandre Despatie
Despatie won Commonwealth platform gold aged 13 in 1998, then became one of the few divers to win world titles on both platform and springboard. His two Olympic springboard silvers, in Athens and Beijing, came against Chinese divers with higher tariffs, and he stayed close through near-faultless execution. He shows how far clean entries can carry a diver against a deeper difficulty list.
More about Alexandre Despatie11
Chen Ruolin
Born
Chen won individual and synchronised platform gold at both Beijing 2008 and London 2012, plus synchro gold in Rio, five Olympic titles on the 10m tower. Her small, compact frame let her spin tight somersaults and enter with almost no splash, and she was the first woman to regularly compete some of the harder men's-style platform dives. She defined women's platform diving for a decade.
More about Chen Ruolin12
Tom Daley
Born
Daley became world platform champion at 15 in 2009 and won Olympic medals at four Games: individual platform bronze at London 2012 and Tokyo 2020, synchro bronze in Rio, synchro gold with Matty Lee in Tokyo and synchro silver with Noah Williams at Paris 2024. Rebuilding his list around his strongest dives after growth spurts and injury, he kept execution high rather than chase tariff, which is why he medalled so consistently. He retired after Paris.
More about Tom Daley13
Quan Hongchan
Born
Quan won the Tokyo 2020 platform final aged 14 with three dives that drew perfect 10s from all seven judges, a record score for the event, and she defended the title at Paris 2024. Her entries are the cleanest the sport has seen, with almost no splash, and they are the reason her scores exceed rivals with similar difficulty. Her duel with team-mate Chen Yuxi is the defining rivalry of modern women's diving.
More about Quan Hongchan14
Chen Yuxi
Born
Chen took silver behind Quan in both the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 individual platform finals, by small margins, and won synchronised platform gold with her at both Games. She has also won world individual platform titles. That two divers from one team can be separated by tenths over a whole final, with near-perfect entries on high-tariff dives, shows how far execution standards have risen.
More about Chen Yuxi15
Cao Yuan
Born
Cao has won Olympic gold on both the springboard and the platform, a rare double in the modern specialised era: synchronised 10m at London 2012, individual 3m springboard at Rio 2016, then individual 10m platform at Tokyo 2020 and again at Paris 2024. Switching between the board's bounce and the tower's static take-off requires different timing, and his consistency across both shows exceptional technical range.
More about Cao Yuan16
Shi Tingmao
Born
Shi won individual and synchronised 3m springboard gold at both Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, four Olympic titles, and a long run of world crowns. Her hurdle, the step and jump on to the end of the board, was so precise that she could load it fully on every dive, giving height for clean entries even on her hardest optional dives. In a discipline where timing is everything, she was the most reliable diver of her generation.
More about Shi Tingmao17
Jack Laugher
Born
Laugher won Britain's first Olympic diving gold, synchronised 3m with Chris Mears at Rio 2016, and individual springboard silver at the same Games behind Cao Yuan. He has since added medals at Tokyo and Paris. His list is among the hardest on springboard, and his medals came on days when he matched that difficulty with the clean entries judges reward, making him the best British springboard diver of the modern era.
More about Jack Laugher18
Xie Siyi
Born
Xie won individual and synchronised 3m springboard gold at both Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024, the men's counterpart to Shi Tingmao's dominance. His list includes some of the highest-tariff springboard dives, yet his scores come mainly from execution, with consistently vertical entries. Beating team-mate Wang Zongyuan, himself a world champion, in successive Olympic finals shows how fine the margins at the top have become.
More about Xie Siyi
