All About Olympic Diving - Very Young Divers_ London 2012

There are five categories of dives in springboard diving, labelled by the type of flight: forward, backward, reverse, inward and twisting. In platform diving, there's also the armstand dive.

In the forward dive, the diver faces forward, while in the backward dive, the diver's back is toward the water. For the reverse dive, the diver faces forward and rotates back toward the board. In the inward dive, the diver faces away from the water, and rotates toward the board.

For the armstand dive, the diver begins from a motionless handstand at the edge of the platform. To assume this position, the diver can either walk, press or "pushup," kick or cartwheel into it. There are many variations of the armstand dive, including forward handstands, backward handstands, twisting handstands and forward cut-through handstand dives.

Total Olympic diving medals awarded since 1904: 249

Diving medals won by U.S. since 1904: 126 (51%)

Total diving medals awarded from 1904 to 1912: 22

Diving medals won by Germany and Sweden from 1904 to 1912: 20 (91%)

Total diving medals awarded from 1984 to 2000: 72

Diving medals won by China from 1984 to 2000: 29 (40%)

Greg Louganis' age when he won first Olympic medal in 1976: 16

Alexandre Despatie's when he won Commonwealth Games gold in 1998: 13

Last major meet where Despatie failed to win a medal: 2000 Olympics

First diver to be awarded a perfect score of 10.0: Peter Desjardins (U.S.) 1928

Height of platform: 10m

Depth of pool: 5m

Amount of time a dive takes: 1.5 seconds

Top speeds of divers hitting the water: 40 kilometres per hour

At the tender age of 13 years, 265 days, Marjorie Gestring of the U.S. became the youngest athlete to win an Olympic medal win she captured the springboard title at the Olympic Games in 1936. To date she still holds that record and baring any rule changes, her accomplishment will likely stand the test of time. Sadly, Gestring would never return to the Olympics which were cancelled in 1940 and 1944 because of World War II. She failed to make the team in 1948.

Dorothy Poynton-Hill made her mark in Berlin when she became the first diver in Olympic history to win the same event in successive Olympics. She followed up her victory on platform in Los Angeles in 1932 with a second gold in Berlin.

With a unique 160m long wave-shaped roof the Aquatics Centre will be the main 'Gateway into the Games', hosting Swimming, Diving, Synchronised Swimming and the Swimming discipline of the Modern Pentathlon. After the Games it will become a 3,000 capacity venue providing two 50m swimming pools with moveable floors and separation booms, a diving pool and dry diving area for the full range of community and elite use.

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