Diving at the 1908 Summer Olympics

The two diving events at the 1908 Olympics were conducted as part of the swimming programme, which also included water polo. They were held in the huge pool which had been built in the infield of the White City Stadium. At one side of the pool, a large diving tower was erected, which was retractable so that, when it was not in use, it was lowered below the surface of the water. The pool and the tower were designed by William Henry, Secretary of the Royal Life Saving Society, who had also competed in the 1900 and 1906 Olympic Games.

Two events were contested - a plain high diving or platform-type diving, and fancy high diving off a springboard. In addition, on Saturday, 18 July, an exhibition of diving was given by two women - Valborg Florström, of Finland, and Ebba Gisico, of Sweden. Women would not make their official Olympic début in swimming and diving until 1912, in Stockholm. This diving exhibition was the first appearance at the Olympics for women in the pool.

An unusual difference in the scoring systems is noted in the rules for diving. In the plain high diving (platform), the judges’ scores were multiplied by the degree of difficulty for each dive. But in the fancy diving (springboard), the degree of difficulty was added to the judges’ scores. Also of note, the regulations stated that the final placements would be determined by an ordinal system of scoring, similar to figure skating, but the ordinal scores are not recorded in any source. In addition, the individual judges’ scores are not known, so it is not possible to reconstruct the ordinal placements.