Michal Navrátil brilliantly opened the season of 2017 and took the 3rd place at FINA – High Diving race at 27 metres!! Michal has taken part in this race only twice, during the World Championships in Barcelona 2013 and Kazan 2015. His best placement at FINA was his fourth place in Barcelona 2013. This season started in Abu Dhabi. The race took place inside the Formula 1 circuit in Yas Marina. After the first qualification day Michal took the third place, which he held until the finals. Michal will be a big hope for Czech cliffdiving at the World Championship in Budapest in July, whose part will be High Diving, too.

“For this year I have prepared a jump with a heat, which I trained and practised right here in Abu Dhabi. It´s something new and in the future I can add even more difficult jump containing one more flip. Jumps are about speed and compared to Kazan, where I started with similar jump, I am adding a bounce to the heat to gain higher speed into rotation. At the moment all my body aches and I need couple of days to relax and regenerate“, Michal Navrátil said after the race.

The winner of the World Championship in Abu Dhabi is the biggest star of last years Gary Hunt from the UK. The second place (between Gary and Michal) was taken by Steve Lo Blue from the USA. Rita Jimenez Treio from Mexico won the women´s category off 20 metres. You can see all the results including points in the gallery.
In Abu Dhabi FINA announced, that they asked for putting High Diving into the Olympic Games programme. Its premiere could therefore happen during the next Olympics in Tokyo in 2020.

Source: www.fina.org/content/4th-fina-high-diving-world-cup