‘What am I doing?’ Sports star lifts lid on the addiction that drives her to extremes

Rhiannan Iffland is a seven-time world champion cliff diver. But what drives the elite athlete to keep coming back to such a daunting sport?

Some of us are addicted to chocolate, others coffee, bingeing television even.

For athlete Rhiannan Iffland, the professional cliff diver is addicted to the rush of jumping from death-defying heights.

“Being involved in such a sport with so many emotions and fears, it’s kind of always a rollercoaster in my sport,” Iffland said before listing her fears: “spiders, being alone, heights, you’d be surprised”.

Iffland spoke on the Mental As Anyone podcast ahead of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series finals at Sydney Harbour this weekend.

Champion cliff diver Rhiannan Iffland.

She is favourite in the 21 metre dive with competitors reaching speeds of around 85km/h.

“Every time I walk up there I find myself saying, ‘what am I doing here again?’” Iffland told the podcast.

“There is always that feeling of this is really scary. So I guess it never goes away but I think I get really addicted to that feeling of overcoming that fear and that challenge ... that makes you want to go back for more. I feel like it is a continuous journey to chase that feeling of overcoming the fear in the adrenaline.”

Iffland, 33, is a seven-time world champion going into the finals and trained at the NSW Institute of Sport with the likes of Olympic divers Matthew Mitcham and Melissa Wu.

She is never complacent despite her long-time status at the top of her sport and concedes she is constantly pursuing perfection in her profession.

“I think I am my harshest critic because you always want to be better and you always want that little bit more,” she explained.

“That’s me for sure. You’re always fighting for a top spot and for me, it has been harder to stay on the top spot than it was to get there. It is always a fight, that’s the nature of the competition.”

Overall, 24 divers, male and female, will compete in the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series this weekend.

Rhiannan Iffland shares her story on the Mental As Anyone podcast. Picture: Christian Gilles

In the lead up to the series final, they’ve dived in competitions from Athens to Boston, Oslo and Montreal.

“It is not nice to walk into an event and know that you’ve got that target on your back because you are the champion,” Iffland explained.

“You feel it. You feel it from the competition and you kind of look at things a little bit differently, but I think it also helps me grow as an athlete and as a person too. You get used to it though.”

* A new episode of Mental As Anyone drops each Tuesday.

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Originally published as ‘What am I doing?’ Sports star lifts lid on the addiction that drives her to extremes