How does the scoring work in diving?
By Kacee Hoffer
Diving is a technically advanced sport. So technical that it can get confusing. But there is an order and method to the madness that has been used for decades. Let’s walk through it:
Let’s say little Jimmy is 11 years old today in 2025 and his birthday is in October, he will be 12. This means that Jimmy’s FINA age is 12 and he will compete in the 12-13 boys Junior Olympian category for all of 2025.
His list will consist of five voluntaries from five different categories and three optional from three different categories.
An example of this list for 3 meter may look like this:
Voluntaries:
103B
201B
301C
401C
5231D
Optionals:
105C
203C
403C
When Jimmy gets up on the board his name and dive is called: Jimmy Diver doing a 103B. Jimmy now has two minutes to perform his dive.
After the scores are called: 5, 5.5, 4.5, 5, 5
There are five judges for this event so the highest and lowest scores will be dropped leaving the three middle scores to be added and multiplied by the degree of difficulty for his dive:
5, 5.5, 4.5, 5, 5 = the 5.5 and 4.5 will be dropped leaving the three 5’s
(5+5+5) * 1.6 =24 points for the dive
This is repeated for each of Jimmy’s dives until he has completed his entire list. Each dive’s total will be added up to make his total list score. Highest total score for the competition wins!
There are some deductions that the rules require judges to give that may not be true easily seen when watching a diver:
The diver lands on his feet with his arms up: no higher than 4.5
The divers feet hit first when he is supposed to land on his head: failed dive, zero points
The diver performed a position other than the one called (ex: 103B is called and the diver does 103C): no higher than 2
The majority of judges raise their hand after a dive is completed to say the divers head was too close to the board: no higher than 2’s
Terminology:
Voluntaries - this is a category of dive that is typically known as the "easier" dives. These are dives like front dive, back dive, reverse dive, inward dive, and a twister such as back one and a half half twist. They are also known as the "required dives".
Optionals - These are known as a diver's "tough" dives. These are the dives that include more flips and twists such as front double, back one and a half, inward one and a half, reverse one and a half and front one and a half full twist.
Degree of Difficulty (DD): Some dives are tougher to make than other dives. To show the differences in the difficulty, USA Diving assigns each dive a degree of difficulty. This number is multiplied by the judges scores to calculate the total score for the dive. DiveMeets.com has a DD finder that can used to find any DD from springboard to platform.
Junior Olympian (JO)- these are the age group categories. These divers have he opportunity to qualify for regionals, zones and national meets For divers 12 and older this means they have a dive in all five categories and several more difficult dives to complete their list. Divers younger than 12 may only need 3-4 voluntaries and 1-2 optionals. On our website there is further explanation of how this plays out in competition: https://www.southmountaindive.com/jo-diver-info
FINA Age - The age the dive turns in a given calendar year. This age represents the age they will compete. This does not matter when their birthday is between January 1 and December 31