Orlando Duque
Orlando Duque ( born September 11, 1974 in Cali ) is a Colombian cliff diver and former art and diver. He counts since the late 1990s to the world's best cliff divers and could win the world title nine times during his career. 2013 won Duque also the first time in the program of the World Swimming Championships withdrawn from the world swimming federation FINA cliff jump competition.
Biography
Career as an art and Turmspringer
Orlando Duque was born in 1974 in Cali in the southwest of Colombia, where he also grew up. At the age of ten he turned away from football training for arts and diving and completed his first jump from the three - meter board. Duque then trained up to six hours a day and won in the following years, several national champion. In 1992 he qualified for the Olympic Games in Barcelona, but could not attend the Summer Olympics due to lack of funding of the Colombian Association of Springer. Disappointed Duque ended his sports career and began university studies.
Two years later, the Colombians for the cliff jumping was able to inspire, an extreme sport, in which one in the wild water jumps from heights of up to 28 meters and shows combines techniques of high diving as somersaults and screws. His first cliff jump Duque graduated in 1995 with a local event in his hometown of Cali. More routine water jumps from a great height he gained through exposure to a Colombian amusement park. Between 1997-1999 Duque worked respectively in the summer months at the Safari Park Gaenserndorf near Vienna, where he graduated as a stuntman water jumps from a 25 meter high crane.
Success as Klipspringer
1999 Orlando Duque joined the high- and Cliff - Diving World Cup circuit and won in the same year at the held for the third time the world championships behind the Australian Steve Black the silver medal. In 2000, he outclassed Black at the qualifying jumping in Dubrovnik, Croatia and Swiss Brontallo and won at the World Championships in the Hawaiian Kaunolu for the first time the title before the two Americans Dustin Webster and Todd Michael, taking the third and final jump from all seven judges, the highest score of 10.0 points received. This earned him a place in the Guinness Book of Records. In the following years Duque became the most elegant and world's best cliff divers. He gained, following his family name, nicknamed "The Duke" (English: " The Duke "; briefly dubbed as " Jimmy Hendrix of the cliff diving " ) and is one of the so-called back Twists his favorite jumps. He defended successfully in 2001 and 2002 the world title, in this period were in the World Cup standings and lost only one match. In 2005 he won before 3000 spectators at the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Championships - his ninth world title. On the 27 -meter-high platform at the Wolfgangsee he reached with a triple backflip with two screws, the maximum daily score of 351 points and sent the Russians Sergey Zotin, World Champion of 2003, and his compatriot Andriy Ignatenko on the courts. The cliff diving world championships in July 2006 Brontallo Duque won with 349.125 points behind Ignatenko ( 360.125 ) and Zotin ( 356.550 ) the bronze medal.
In September 2009, in Athens succeeded Duque to win the first time, organized by Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series as. The following year he had to Briton Gary Hunt defeated - 2011 Duque could not start at the final competition in Athens, 2012, he lost the final narrowly to Hunt because of a foot injury. 2013 took the world swimming federation FINA for the first time cliff jumping into the official program of the 15th World Swimming Championships. At the Championships in Barcelona in late July Duque won the gold medal ahead of Hunt and the Mexicans Jonathan Paredes.
Others
Orlando Duque, who speaks fluent English, is married and lives in Laie on Oahu (Hawaii). The Colombian, who counts among other bodyboarding and canoeing among his hobbies, has been the subject of several documentaries. In 2005 he made his debut as an actor in the semi- autobiographical work 9 dives, which was premiered at the festival Eurocine Colombia on 19 April 2006 in Bogotá. For the wacky within four years feature film by Austrian Mario Kreuzer Duque completed to date, the highest cliff jump from a 34-meter high bridge. 9 Dives was released in 2006 with success in Venezuela and Austrian cinemas.