History
Diving made its first Olympic appearance at the 1904 St. Louis Games with an event that combined platform and springboard diving. That event was also on the program at the 1906 “intercalated” games in Athens.
Springboard diving was added in 1908 and platform diving in 1912, when the combined event was dropped. Women's platform diving was also added in 1912, followed by women's springboard diving in 1920.
From 1912 through 1928, divers were ranked by ordinals; that is, the places assigned them by the judges. Thus, if there were three judges and a diver was ranked first by two and second by one, that diver's score would be 4 (1+1+2). A diver with a lower point score but higher ordinals could therefore win the gold medal.
Since 1932, divers have been ranked by the total number of points for all their dives. The score for a dive is the score awarded by the judges, on a scale from 0 to 6, multiplied by the dive's degree of difficulty. The degree of difficulty ranges from a low of 1.2 to a high of 3.6.
The newest discipline, synchronized diving, became an Olympic event in 2000.