University of Minnesota Athletics
GA Ellie Smart Takes Diving to the Extreme
2/15/2019 4:04:00 PM | Men's Swimming & Diving, Women's Swimming & Diving
As a Minnesota diving graduate assistant, professional cliff diver and environmental activist, Ellie Smart does it all. The Red Bull performer got her start on the diving board at age five when she competed in her first diving meet. She spent four years competing as a NCAA diver during her undergraduate career at UC-Berkeley and after graduation decided to explore new possibilities in the sport.
"Being able to come back into diving in this whole new discipline that is evolving, it's almost even more special to be able to represent the United States and get to compete for them and develop this discipline into something even bigger," said Smart.
In order to prove the ability to compete as a cliff diver, an athlete must show that they can perform four dives from extremely high heights and film them. The typical height of the platform or cliff that the diver must jump off of is 21 meters high (changed from 20 in 2017), which is double the height of the 10 meter platform used at the collegiate level.
The prospective high diver--high diving being the preferred name of the sport--then must send in the video recordings of their dives to the Red Bull committee. Red Bull proceeds to either reject the diver or sign the athlete as a wild card for the next season. Due to her ability, Red Bull signed Smart as a wild card for the 2017 season. Now going into her third season, Smart has joined the roster as a permanent diver for Red Bull. She also was afforded the opportunity to represent Team USA at a FINA International competition this past November.
Despite her deep love of the sport, Smart wasn't always so eager to jump over 20 meters into the water. She claims a close friend had to coax her out onto the cliffs for her first attempt, but once she completed her first jump she was hooked.
"My friend convinced me to go with her. We went, and I jumped off this cliff and I thought, 'Oh my gosh, this is so cool! Is this something that you can do that you can compete in?" remembered Smart. "I knew one of my friends, David Colturi, was competing with Red Bull--they had put on a World Series. I messaged him and asked if girls were doing this too and what exactly do they do? They had just added girls to the World Series a couple years before, so I set it as my goal to start competing and doing that. And now, here we are."
Smart has not had the easiest of journeys in her pursuit of high-diving as a career. Back in 2018 in the midst of her season she suffered from a surprising injury and had to undergo surgery during the summer to recover in time to win her bronze medal at the 2018 FINA World Cup.
"It turns out that I had a giant bone spur on my pelvic bone, and actually ended up fracturing my pelvic bone. So, I didn't train very much leading up to the World Cup. When I dove it didn't hurt. It was just walking and especially walking up stairs. So, walking up to the cliff would take me so long because I was limping," explained Smart.
Competing at such an extreme level has given Smart some hard-to-achieve expertise in the diving field. Transitioning from collegiate diving to cliff diving has given her experiences and advice that she can relate to the Minnesota divers that she coaches, thus helping them in their performance.
"I work with Jeremy [Moser] a lot. He's one of our juniors, and he has started getting really interested in the mental game and the different aspects of that in competing," said Smart. "So my experiences have been really helpful for them, especially from going to the World Cup and winning a medal and then coming back to work with them on mental skills and say, 'This is what I did, this is what really worked.' And then, them being able to implement those same things in competing has helped a lot in their performance."
From putting her friends through gymnastic practices as a little girl, to encouraging teammates at UC-Berkeley, to being a part of the Maroon and Gold, Smart has always loved coaching. One of her favorite aspects of competing was supporting others, something she says the Gophers do well.
"The way the swim team works with the dive team and the way they appreciate each other and work together and how supportive they are, it's just special. A lot of swim and dive teams don't have that same comradery," Ellie smiled. "It's been amazing."
And working with head diving coach Wenbo Chen? Ellie considers it a dream come true.
"I still joke about this--I still have the picture--but when I was like ten years old, I got a goldfish and named it Wenbo. Because he was my dream coach, I always wanted to dive with him and train under him," Ellie laughed.
When she's not coaching or training, Smart dedicates her time to improving the environmental health of the waters with which she has become so familiar. Over the course of her first year competing, Smart saw how much plastic pollution was sitting in the oceans and how the cliff diving community was standing idle. In response, she started the Clean Cliffs Project, which has organized groups to help clean up the pollution and restore the waters to how they should be. The groups have worked in three continents, four countries, and the organization has ambassadors in over a dozen countries.
"Being able to come back into diving in this whole new discipline that is evolving, it's almost even more special to be able to represent the United States and get to compete for them and develop this discipline into something even bigger," said Smart.
In order to prove the ability to compete as a cliff diver, an athlete must show that they can perform four dives from extremely high heights and film them. The typical height of the platform or cliff that the diver must jump off of is 21 meters high (changed from 20 in 2017), which is double the height of the 10 meter platform used at the collegiate level.
The prospective high diver--high diving being the preferred name of the sport--then must send in the video recordings of their dives to the Red Bull committee. Red Bull proceeds to either reject the diver or sign the athlete as a wild card for the next season. Due to her ability, Red Bull signed Smart as a wild card for the 2017 season. Now going into her third season, Smart has joined the roster as a permanent diver for Red Bull. She also was afforded the opportunity to represent Team USA at a FINA International competition this past November.
Despite her deep love of the sport, Smart wasn't always so eager to jump over 20 meters into the water. She claims a close friend had to coax her out onto the cliffs for her first attempt, but once she completed her first jump she was hooked.
"My friend convinced me to go with her. We went, and I jumped off this cliff and I thought, 'Oh my gosh, this is so cool! Is this something that you can do that you can compete in?" remembered Smart. "I knew one of my friends, David Colturi, was competing with Red Bull--they had put on a World Series. I messaged him and asked if girls were doing this too and what exactly do they do? They had just added girls to the World Series a couple years before, so I set it as my goal to start competing and doing that. And now, here we are."
Smart has not had the easiest of journeys in her pursuit of high-diving as a career. Back in 2018 in the midst of her season she suffered from a surprising injury and had to undergo surgery during the summer to recover in time to win her bronze medal at the 2018 FINA World Cup.
"It turns out that I had a giant bone spur on my pelvic bone, and actually ended up fracturing my pelvic bone. So, I didn't train very much leading up to the World Cup. When I dove it didn't hurt. It was just walking and especially walking up stairs. So, walking up to the cliff would take me so long because I was limping," explained Smart.
Competing at such an extreme level has given Smart some hard-to-achieve expertise in the diving field. Transitioning from collegiate diving to cliff diving has given her experiences and advice that she can relate to the Minnesota divers that she coaches, thus helping them in their performance.
"I work with Jeremy [Moser] a lot. He's one of our juniors, and he has started getting really interested in the mental game and the different aspects of that in competing," said Smart. "So my experiences have been really helpful for them, especially from going to the World Cup and winning a medal and then coming back to work with them on mental skills and say, 'This is what I did, this is what really worked.' And then, them being able to implement those same things in competing has helped a lot in their performance."
From putting her friends through gymnastic practices as a little girl, to encouraging teammates at UC-Berkeley, to being a part of the Maroon and Gold, Smart has always loved coaching. One of her favorite aspects of competing was supporting others, something she says the Gophers do well.
"The way the swim team works with the dive team and the way they appreciate each other and work together and how supportive they are, it's just special. A lot of swim and dive teams don't have that same comradery," Ellie smiled. "It's been amazing."
And working with head diving coach Wenbo Chen? Ellie considers it a dream come true.
"I still joke about this--I still have the picture--but when I was like ten years old, I got a goldfish and named it Wenbo. Because he was my dream coach, I always wanted to dive with him and train under him," Ellie laughed.
When she's not coaching or training, Smart dedicates her time to improving the environmental health of the waters with which she has become so familiar. Over the course of her first year competing, Smart saw how much plastic pollution was sitting in the oceans and how the cliff diving community was standing idle. In response, she started the Clean Cliffs Project, which has organized groups to help clean up the pollution and restore the waters to how they should be. The groups have worked in three continents, four countries, and the organization has ambassadors in over a dozen countries.
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