Cliff diving champion Rhiannan Iffland: 'It can feel like a car crash if you get it wrong'

Iffland is the four-time champion of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series, which this Sunday stops off at Downpatrick Head in Mayo, with 24 of the world’s best – 12 men, 12 women – ready to show their skill, class, and mind-boggling levels of courage

Rhiannan Iffland of Australia dives from the 21-metre platform in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Imagine being perched on a platform 70 feet in the air, the Atlantic breeze blowing hard as you stare down over jagged rocks at the raging ocean below. Now imagine jumping upwards off that platform, twisting and somersaulting several times as your body starts to accelerate on your four-second journey through the air. You’ll hit the water at somewhere between 75 and 80 kilometres an hour, and one mis-timed tuck, one stray limb, could spell disaster.

“The impact can be quite strong, it can feel like a car crash if you get it wrong,” says Rhiannan Iffland, the 29-year-old Australian who is the most successful female cliff diver in history.