‘One Step at a Time’. The entire documentary seems to reside within those words. On one level, they frame a remarkable athletic achievement: Francesco Puppi’s second-place finish at the legendary Western States, accomplished despite venturing into a distance he had never previously encountered and enduring an almost unbroken sequence of difficulties throughout his preparation. More profoundly, they give shape to a meditation on identity and self-acceptance: an intimate inquiry into self-discovery, the willingness to expose oneself to uncertainty, and, ultimately, a vibrant testament to the power of human connection.

Supported by Hoka, Enervit, Coros and Vibram, and directed by Damiano Levati, with Puppi himself intimately involved in the editing process and the film’s wider construction, the documentary gravitates around the idea of ‘control’ and a paradox at the heart of his experience: that even within the intrinsically rational architecture of a long-distance running career, uncertainty and apparent gaps can, almost inexplicably, be reconciled through a fuller acceptance of oneself and one’s vulnerabilities… and through the willingness to share them with others.

Puppi himself traces the narrative or, more accurately, the interwoven narratives that compose the film. A journey beginning in the desolation of repeated, frustrating injuries. Moving through uncertainty. And culminating in a clarity embodied by a single gesture: the embrace, at the finish line of Placer High School in Auburn, with his partner Gloria Giudici and his coach Tito Tiberti, themselves essential protagonists in everything that preceded it.

Accompanying the conversation are photographs by Daniele Molineris.

Before the Western States, you drew a parallel with your first half marathon, which you ran at thirteen: in both cases, you described the experience as stepping into unknown territory. At this stage of your career, with so much experience behind you, how did Francesco Puppi approach this new challenge?

“Perhaps it is precisely in the most difficult situations that who you really are comes to the surface: how you deal with problems, how you make decisions. Once again, this was an opportunity to question my own limits and uncertainties, and to become an athlete, a person learning how to do something new. More specifically, things unfolded quite differently from what I had expected, largely because I arrived at the Western States after a preparation shaped by my wrist injury, post-operative recovery and a succession of setbacks. I had far fewer certainties than I usually draw from the linearity of my preparation for a race. I also arrived at the Western States with a certain level of expectation surrounding me. A lot of people were waiting for a result. To some extent, so was I. The question then became: how much do you want to remain within that kind of narrative, and how much do you want, instead, to simply be yourself: to let go of some of those expectations and do what you are capable of doing, precisely because, this time, not everything can be under your control?”

The question of control has surfaced repeatedly in our previous conversations: study, preparation, analysis, and an almost scientific relationship with your body are all essential to the way you understand running. This time, many of those certainties fell away. How did the Western States reshape your understanding of control, and how did that understanding evolve during the race itself?

“I had to redefine it. During my preparation, I went through a long period in which my body simply didn’t seem to respond to the training stimulus. It was probably the result of excessive stress, between managing my post-operative recovery and the need to train. I didn’t want to train simply to finish the race, my first 100-miler: I wanted to compete at the level I have always expected of myself. At a certain point, my coach Tito Tiberti and I decided to lower our expectations somewhat and approach it almost as an experience: to see what I could take from it and accept whatever came along the way, without demanding perfection, simply accepting the circumstances for what they were. In the months leading up to the Western States, what really challenged me wasn’t so much the psychological side, which I managed reasonably well, but the physical one. For many days, it felt as though my body simply couldn’t keep up with me. The adaptations eventually came, but they took time. In the final phase of my preparation, things gradually began to fall into place, and I started to gain some confidence that I might at least be able to finish the race. Not that I could actually be competitive. I also remember an exchange with Jim Walmsley, a four-time Western States winner and the course-record holder until this latest edition. In early May, I told him, ‘I don’t think I’m going to join you at the Hoka team’s altitude camp, because in my situation it just doesn’t make sense.’ I was still finishing physiotherapy, and I genuinely needed to focus on myself, on my routine, on my own things. I needed to hold on to a certain set of certainties. He reassured me.

When you come from shorter distances, you have a certain structure, a certain idea of how training is supposed to unfold and what you are supposed to feel… To prepare for this distance, for this kind of race, you have to let go of those paradigms: not entirely, of course, but to a certain extent. That exchange with Jim made me realise that, all things considered, what I was doing was actually working reasonably well. Even though I was finding it difficult to navigate that situation, it gave me confidence. There were still plenty of doubts, but continuing to move forward made sense. I went into the race with that approach, with that mindset… and I think, ultimately, it helped me. Then, when you suddenly find yourself doing better than you expected, of course you get an enormous boost from that. It’s very different from expecting to be at the front and then finding yourself in fifth, perhaps already struggling. I hadn’t imagined such an intense race, without a single moment to breathe across almost fourteen hours. You think, ‘I can manage the first half. There’ll be room to let the kilometres pass. It won’t be hard from the very beginning.’ But that’s the Western States. And precisely because of that, there is only so far control can take you…”

That brings us to the outcome of the race: in light of everything you have shared, an unexpected and significant second place. At the end of this journey, what did that result ultimately come to mean to you?

“In the end, I realised that you don’t need to do everything perfectly. For an athlete, that means training well and, above all, being consistent in the work you put in, without expecting your preparation to follow the kind of linear progression you might find prescribed in an athletics textbook. So, ultimately, it is simply a matter of accepting yourself. I don’t mean lowering your expectations, but accepting that things can unfold differently from the way you imagined they would. In my next races, I’ll try to trust myself more, even when things aren’t exactly as I pictured them.”

Let’s turn to the title of the film, ‘One Step at a Time’. What do those words hold for you, and why did you choose them to encapsulate the Western States experience?

“They are Gloria’s words. She’s my partner, and she followed and supported me throughout the race. She said them at the Foresthill aid station, at around the 100-kilometre mark. I was leading the race, but as soon as I came into the aid station, I told her, ‘I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep going.’ There were still 60 kilometres ahead of me, and my mind simply couldn’t process the idea of continuing at that pace. She replied, ‘The way you always have: one step at a time.’ For all its simplicity, almost its banality, I find that phrase incredibly powerful. To me, it describes exactly how we should try to approach the challenges that sport and, to some extent, life place before us. Of course, there is nothing particularly original about the idea, but it became the perfect core for this film, for the entire Western States experience. In that moment, those words gave meaning to the race, to the fatigue, to the effort I was making, and simply helped me keep going. Obviously, with this film we’re not claiming to teach anyone anything, much less to have invented something new. But I do believe there is value, in any context and any experience, when certain things reveal themselves with such clarity and force. They can become a point of reference for someone else: a way of remembering how to keep moving forward.”

Human connection seems to have taken on an increasingly important role in your recent journey. How have you experienced this growing openness towards others, and how do you understand it now, looking back?

“You’ve identified very precisely one of the central themes of the film, if not the central theme: relationships. When I shared the preview, that’s exactly what I wrote: the film is about the journey I went through alongside Tito, my coach, my partner Gloria, and the other people who stood beside me… And it is about the power of sharing an experience in this way, far more than it is about how to run the Western States in under fourteen hours. It’s difficult for me to talk about this without resorting to words that might sound banal or clichéd, but over the past few years I’ve come to understand that relying on other people, asking for help, sharing your emotions and allowing yourself to be vulnerable are anything but signs of weakness. To some extent, they show a willingness to get to the root of certain problems. It is also a process that requires a great deal of courage. And I think that somewhere within that process lies our real inner strength: a strength that ultimately finds its way into what we do. Then, of course, you still have to run. When people ask me what matters in ultrarunning, I tell them that your legs are what get you to the start line. But how much of that potential you are actually able to access depends enormously on your mental and emotional state. And the people around you can make an extraordinary difference, particularly when they are able to understand you as a person, support you, and put themselves in your shoes.”

How difficult was it to allow yourself to be filmed in moments of doubt while, at the same time, continuing to experience first the preparation and then the race without becoming conscious of the film gradually taking shape around you?

“I think the level of trust and the friendship I developed with Damiano Levati, the film’s director, were incredibly important. Damiano effectively became part of my everyday life and entered some very intimate spaces: moments when I was low, when I was doubtful, when I was struggling… For me, it was essential to have someone beside me whom I could trust, someone by whom I never felt judged and with whom I could simply be myself. I never thought about the fact that we were filming something for a film, or that I was supposed to be playing a role. Nothing like that. We didn’t have a predetermined narrative: we simply tried, day by day and week by week, to document what this preparation meant for me, and then what happened on race day. Working with Damiano Levati, and with Daniele Molineris, who was responsible for the photography, mattered enormously to me for precisely those reasons.”

Watching the film in its entirety, and on the big screen, were there any moments that struck you particularly deeply, either for the beauty of the images or for the depth of what they were conveying?

“There were many. Partly because I was personally involved in the editing, the subtitles and so many other aspects of the film… At a certain point, I almost became detached from it. Despite that, seeing the finished film alongside so many other people made an enormous difference, and genuinely moved me. There’s a moment towards the end when I talk about how, for a long time, I used the feeling of never being enough as a reason to push myself harder, to improve, to work more… The real change over the past few years has been learning to accept that, in certain situations, especially the most difficult ones, simply trying to do my best can be enough. And that sometimes I manage to do things for which I can actually tell myself, ‘Well done.’ Moments when I can genuinely recognise my own worth, which has always been difficult for me. I’m quite insecure. I have a lot of doubts. So connecting all of this with the people who love me, who were there, who supported me and who made it possible for me to finish that race means a great deal. Feeling that kind of support, and that unconditional love towards me, was incredibly powerful, because for a long time I didn’t think I deserved it. Even now, I still struggle somewhat to say, ‘I deserve this.’ It’s always difficult. But little by little, I’m beginning to resolve that tension within myself.”

You mentioned your involvement in the editing, the writing of the subtitles and, more broadly, the construction of the film. Across the different editorial features we have developed together over the past few years, your evolution as an athlete has increasingly been accompanied by a more conscious narrative dimension. How much of an imprint did you leave on the structure of ‘One Step at a Time’, and what did it mean to you to take an active role in the making of a film?

“There is an enormous amount of work behind a one-hour documentary. I think the clips that actually make it into the finished film represent perhaps three per cent of everything we shot. You are constantly confronted with an endless series of decisions: what to include, what to leave out, the narrative choices, the music, the colour, the structure you want to give the story. The same story can be told in radically different ways. Damiano and I made those decisions together. A lot of the time, he would be working directly on the edit and I would give him feedback. I was actively involved throughout that process, and many of the narrative choices we made were decisions we arrived at together. I enjoyed it. Perhaps it’s an unconventional way of working on a project like this, but it mattered to me to be involved in shaping the narrative, with all the limitations that inevitably came with that, because obviously I’m not a filmmaker. But this is ours, and precisely for that reason, I’m happy with what we created.”

During the months of filming, did you ever find yourself experiencing individual moments through the eyes of an editor rather than those of an athlete?

“As an editor, you have to try to detach yourself from the work, to think about it almost as though it weren’t a film about you: as though you were telling the story of someone else. It’s difficult because, obviously, you are personally involved, and that carries a considerable weight, particularly on an emotional level. But you have to find a way of stepping outside yourself. As an athlete, watching the film back, I often found myself conflicted. I experience the same constant uncertainty when I communicate through social media: to people within the sport, to athletes, to those who take running very seriously, certain things can seem almost obvious. But the moment you widen the perspective and consider a broader audience, you realise that they aren’t. Ultimately, though, I simply put into the film what I liked and what I found meaningful, first and foremost, for myself. I hope the people who watch it will appreciate it. And even here, I won’t deny it, I tried to lower the weight of expectation a little: to let it go…”

Taking this reflection beyond the film itself, what might it mean for the trail and ultra community and, more broadly, for the Italian and international sporting imagination, to show that an athlete can also play an active role in shaping narratives and creative work, approaching them with genuine competence and care?

“It’s a thought that, naturally, makes me somewhat uncomfortable, because I find it difficult to think of myself as an inspiration, a role model or a point of reference for anyone. I know that, given the position I’m in, to some extent I am, and there are results that perhaps lend some weight to that. One of the messages I would like people to take from the film, and one that I think comes through quite clearly, is the importance of being yourself, and of not allowing yourself to be defined or confined by the boundaries that other people, and society more broadly, imagine for us and for our ‘role’. For a long time, the figure of the professional athlete was confined within fairly rigid parameters. Fortunately, those boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred. It matters that athletes are able to give space to the different dimensions of their identity, rather than being defined solely by the fact that they are athletes. If, in that sense, the film can inspire other people, then I’m very happy. But I want to be clear: there is absolutely nothing wrong with athletes who simply want to run and pursue performance. I have nothing but respect for them.”

On one side, there was the unknown territory of the Western States. On the other, the decision to tell your own story with this degree of depth, placing yourself at the heart of such a complex project… Which of the two required you to find more courage?

“I see them as two different kinds of difficulty. The first belongs more to the sporting dimension, although there is obviously a considerable emotional and mental component to it. But it is something you know you have built towards through preparation and training. In the film, my partner and my coach keep bringing me back to the reason we had chosen to be there. In moments of difficulty, your mind doesn’t work in a linear way, and you need someone who can bring you back to a place of rationality, who can remind you that what you are facing is, in fact, exactly what you have spent so long preparing for. That was fundamental for me, and it is another reason why having those people beside me mattered so much. 

The other question is how difficult it was, and how much courage it required, to tell the whole story with this degree of depth. Here too, I think of it as a form of preparation: one that began much earlier, through the work I did with my sports psychologist. It has been a process of learning to understand myself more deeply, to accept certain parts of my identity, and to relinquish some of the shame we so often feel towards the things we carry within us. Little by little, over time, with some struggle, some courage, plenty of mistakes and the occasional step backwards, you discover more and more of the person you are. You learn to accept that person and eventually even to speak about them, to share them with others. Gradually, it begins to feel more natural, and to carry less of the shame that so often holds us back: that fear of failing to live up to other people’s expectations.”

“Poi d’improvviso venivo dal vento rapito”. “Then, suddenly, I was swept away by the wind.” The words of Domenico Modugno echo across Polignano a Mare, whose sublime coastline shaped his imagination. They drift over the same stretch of Adriatic that inspired them, borne by the restless, at times hostile movement of waves and currents. All around, throngs of bodies transfixed by a breathtaking setting; thousands of eyes waiting for airborne bodies to streak across the sky, for artists in flight. For a handful of fleeting seconds in which everything is contained.

Divers or painters of the void. Athletes or brushes. Such distinctions seem to dissolve amid a continuous sequence of somersaults and twists, each exerting the same hypnotic pull. The final stop of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series reveals the full nature of a discipline that is extreme in so many respects, lyrical in just as many. Ancient architecture, rising around the Bastione di Santo Stefano, meets one of the most complex and dreamlike forms of athletic expression. From balconies more accustomed to ‘pasticciotti’ and cups of coffee. From platforms set 20 metres above the water for the women, 27 for the men. The principle remains the same. Fear overcome by will; the desire to hurtle towards the water at extraordinary speed while retaining complete command of every movement.

At the edge of the horizon, 24 human beings are swept away by the wind, only to break free of it, vanishing into the water before resurfacing to the admiration of the crowd. Painted in blue, each with a form and style of their own. Works shaped by perfection and perception, tracing “un cielo trapunto di stelle”, “a sky embroidered with stars”, the same sky imagined by Modugno, and inscribing it within the sporting imagination. Canada’s Molly Carlson and Ukraine’s Oleksiy Prygorov claim victory at the discipline’s defining stop. The overall titles belong to Rhiannan Iffland, sovereign for a tenth consecutive season, and Britain’s Aidan Heslop. Yet it is the Italian athletes or, perhaps more fittingly, the Italian interpreters who most powerfully captivate and stir the Polignano crowd: Davide Baraldi, Elisa Cosetti and Andrea Barnaba.

Their voices lead us into high diving and into Red Bull’s distinctive interpretation of the discipline. Our visual narrative translates their impressions into aesthetic compositions.

Davide Baraldi

What first drew you to diving and, specifically, high diving? What was it about the discipline that fascinated you?

“Water has always been part of my family life: my mother first took me swimming when I was three months old. By the time I was six, we were looking for something different, and we found a diving school in my hometown, Como. I can’t remember exactly what happened inside me during that first session, but I know that was the day I fell in love. I still describe diving as my first, truest and longest-lasting relationship. A relationship that has gone through moments of ecstasy and hatred, moments when I thought about leaving, others when I actually did, only to come back again… I started on the one- and three-metre boards. Then, when I was nineteen, at a particularly complicated point in my relationship with the discipline, the Federation launched a project dedicated to high diving. I wanted to try it because, alongside water, I had always been drawn to risk… The first time, I had one objective: to climb up there and make a dive. Just one. I wanted to challenge myself, to find out whether I could cross that threshold. When you’re standing on the platform, the fear is immense: I still feel it today. The moment you’re in the air, everything changes. You feel free. You feel as though you’re doing what you were born to do. It’s an interweaving of fear, freedom and the desire to surpass yourself; then you enter the water and what follows is happiness and pure adrenaline. It’s incredibly difficult to explain.”

We believe that every sport is, in its own way, a form of art. What, in your view, makes high diving and cliff diving art forms in their own right? When you perform, do you ever feel like an artist as much as an athlete?

“I feel like a synthesis of artist and athlete. I place those two definitions on the same level. Our sport is profoundly aesthetic: I think it’s this ability to express power and grace in the very same instant that makes the discipline an art form. You have to make an extraordinarily difficult movement appear effortless, almost as though you were painting yourself through the air: turning something an artist might trace on a canvas into an acrobatic, physical gesture. High diving has taught me to trust my body. Sometimes the mind wanders, goes off on journeys of its own, constructing scenarios that almost shouldn’t exist. When you’re standing on the platform, you have to be able to tell yourself: ‘I’ve trained for this, I know how to do it, my body knows how to do it.’ In a way, you have to let the body take over. Of course, that doesn’t mean switching the mind off completely; it means learning to entrust yourself to what the body knows at a deeper level.”

You have a secret passion for magic. How does it inform the way you see high diving? What are the most concealed tricks behind a discipline so complex and, to most people, almost impossible to decipher?

“I see them both as disciplines that demand constant practice. If you stop, even for a short while, you lose that familiarity. And with both, there is always something new to learn. You never truly arrive. I love that principle because it extends to life itself: there is never a point at which you can say you have definitively reached your destination. There is always room to improve. In diving, that means searching for a better dive every time; in magic, performing a trick more precisely, making it appear ever more real to the person watching, concealing the illusion more completely. I practise magic less than I used to because it requires an enormous amount of dedication, but I still love it. Whenever I have the chance, I still enjoy having a deck of cards in my hands, trying something out, even simply shuffling them. I think there is another connection between diving and magic, too: the desire to astonish people.”

You have repeatedly spoken about the importance of the mental dimension in this sport. In a discipline that pushes the body to its limits, what role do thought and the mind play? And where does your mind go, before and during a dive?

“It connects to the previous question. Before a dive, the mind can play tricks on you: it can tell you that you’re not capable, that you might hurt yourself, that everything might go completely wrong… In that sense, magic has taught me something essential: if you can conceal something, you can almost make it appear as though it doesn’t exist. Of course, I’m not talking about real problems, but about the negative thoughts associated with my discipline. You know they can only lead you in the wrong direction; so if you manage to set them aside, your mind begins to see, above all, what can work. You start telling yourself: I’ve performed this movement a thousand times, why should my body get it wrong now? There’s something beautiful about that, because you learn to bring everything back to something you know. There is time to think during the flight, too, although you’re barely aware of it. Sometimes you think, but your body moves before the thought even arrives; at other times, you experience things that, immediately after entering the water, you can no longer recall precisely. It happens in training as well: sometimes you can formulate entire sentences, or almost, while you’re in the air, only to lose them immediately afterwards. Diving is a little like playing an instrument: you’re doing something you know so intimately that you no longer need to translate it entirely into thought.”

What does it mean to you to represent the Italian movement in the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series? What message or advice would you like to pass on to the younger generations, particularly in Italy, who are now falling in love with the sport through what you are doing?

“I had never really thought about it from that perspective. Until quite recently, I was the one looking up to someone else: and, in many ways, I still am. But I’m beginning to realise that my own generation can now inspire others. If there is one thing I would like to pass on, both to divers who imagine themselves one day confronting the great heights and to younger athletes more broadly, it is this: never set a limit on what you might be capable of. My own story keeps reminding me of that. I come from diving off the one- and three-metre boards. Even the thought of climbing up to seven or ten metres used to terrify me; twenty-seven wasn’t even something I could imagine… And yet, here I am today. It happened one step at a time.”

Elisa Cosetti

You were the first Italian woman to make her debut in the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series. What first drew you to the discipline?

“I first became interested in high diving after watching an exhibition in my hometown, Trieste. I remember being moved by it just like any other spectator. When you’re already a diver, it isn’t necessarily easy to be impressed by diving itself. And yet, that experience stayed with me. At the time, almost jokingly, I said: ‘I’d like to try that.’ Of course, I said it without really knowing what I was getting myself into. Later, the Federation launched a project that gave us a concrete opportunity to practise the discipline. Every stop, everything I experience through Red Bull Cliff Diving, still feels like a kind of first for me. It is an immense honour. I don’t approach competitions thinking that I have to achieve a certain result because I was the first Italian woman to reach this circuit. What I do hope is that what I’m doing might inspire someone else. I know how difficult this sport is, but I hope that, sooner or later, even just one girl will come along and say: ‘I saw Elisa, and I decided to become a high diver.’”

Art was your favourite subject at school. We firmly believe that every sport is, in its own way, a form of art. What, in your view, makes high diving an art form in its own right? When you perform, do you ever feel like an artist as much as an athlete?

“I should start by saying that I study industrial design, so this is a question I care about particularly. I think the very uniqueness of this sport, as well as the fact that so few people are able to practise it, gives the discipline a profoundly artistic dimension. Then there is something that might seem almost trivial: often, the simplest dives are also the most elegant, the most beautiful to watch. Difficulty is not necessarily what makes a dive beautiful. Sometimes an extremely complex movement can, paradoxically, be less beautiful, while something much simpler, performed with great elegance, can be far more compelling to an audience. I think the artistry of diving, and of high diving in particular, also lies in this. And as for your second question: yes, absolutely, I do feel like an artist.”

Your Instagram bio reads, ‘I live for adrenaline, not filters.’ What does that approach to life mean to you? And how do adrenaline and emotion, fear included, coexist with the rationality required of a high diver?

“Today, on Instagram and social media more broadly, we see so many things that are fake, retouched or simply don’t reflect reality. I don’t want to communicate something artificial. Through the videos I post, I try to show what actually lies behind our sport, because there are aspects of it that people watching from the outside might never even think about. For example, so many people assume we aren’t afraid, that we’re crazy, that diving from those heights is somehow nothing out of the ordinary for us… In reality, we do it with an enormous degree of awareness. Adrenaline is one of the most beautiful elements of this sport precisely because the fear is always there, especially when you find yourself in circumstances that differ from what you’re accustomed to. Think of the iconic balcony dive here in Polignano. Normally, you practise that dive from a platform in a pool: there’s no wind, no swell, and you know the trajectory and the movement perfectly. Here, instead, you’re standing on a balcony with barely enough room for your feet, and you have to project yourself forwards because directly beneath you there is nothing but rock. This weekend in particular, we had strong wind and waves. But that is precisely the point. Fear, and the adrenaline that comes from it, are the combination that truly defines our sport, at least as I see it… And they are also a large part of what keeps drawing me back up to twenty metres.”

From your European silver medal on Paris’s Pont de Bir-Hakeim to Polignano: how do these two dimensions of the sport, so closely related, yet so different, speak to one another? And what does it feel like to take in the landscape surrounding the Bastione di Santo Stefano?

“Within high diving, you have, first of all, the competitions organised through the Federation: European Championships, World Championships, World Cups… They represent the more institutional dimension of the discipline and, for us as federation athletes, they carry enormous importance. Then there is Red Bull, which takes high diving into a more extreme and spectacular dimension. I really enjoy competing at events like Polignano because they allow us to experience constantly changing conditions and situations. Red Bull pays enormous attention to the settings themselves and to what they can convey… And the locations of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series are incredible. Polignano, in particular, has something special about it: not least, perhaps above all, because of the sheer number of people who come to watch us. I find that genuinely moving. Of course, all of us have put in hour after hour of training to arrive here as prepared as possible, but finding yourself in front of so many people watching you, or cheering for you, changes the way you experience the moment… It makes the sport itself even more exhilarating.”

In recent years, the women’s side of the discipline has grown considerably, particularly through a circuit such as the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series. Through what you are doing, what would you like to convey to future generations of female high divers: especially those who dream, or will one day dream, of representing Italy at events like these?

“I think part of the beauty of this sport lies in just how much fun it can be. We often tend to associate sport almost exclusively with ideas such as discipline, with the sense that you have to train because there is a particular result you want to achieve. High diving, for me, is also about pushing beyond your own limits while still being able to enjoy yourself even when the result you were hoping for doesn’t come. That is the relationship I try to maintain with the discipline: training hard, but never losing the enjoyment of it. For me, that is the most important thing. I’ve realised that the competitions in which I feel most relaxed, and in which I genuinely enjoy myself, are also the ones in which I perform at my best. And that applies equally to the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series and to federation competitions. I remember the European Championships in Paris, for example: my family and friends were there, and before diving I would find myself laughing because they were shouting so loudly. In the end, I had a great competition, and I’m convinced that it had a lot to do with that mindset, with being able to share the moment in that way.”

Andrea Barnaba

What drew you to this discipline when you were still a teenager? What fascinated you about it? And what did you feel during your first high dive?

“It all begins with the fact that I come from a seaside city, Trieste. As a kid, I would jump from anywhere: rocks, piers… Then one day, I remember it as if it were yesterday, a man came up to me and said: try doing a backflip. I tried, and I managed it. My father looked at me and said: ‘You should try diving.’ From that day on, he never stopped telling me… So eventually, I did. The first time I went to a pool, I started bouncing on the springboard without really knowing what I was doing. That was where an absolute passion began. I practised traditional diving for seven or eight years. At a certain point, I felt I wanted something more. My first coach, Alessandro De Rose, who before us had been the only Italian diver on the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series, told us about a high-diving project that was taking shape within the Federation. My response was simple: ‘Let’s try it.’ The progression was gradual. I worked my way up little by little, but eventually there was an unavoidable leap: from twenty metres to twenty-seven. There is nothing in between. After my first dive from 27 metres, I came out of the water trembling from a mixture of exhilaration and the release of having overcome the fear. There were people around me congratulating me, and I just kept walking… Everything felt muffled: it was a convergence of emotions that is difficult to describe. You experience them and your only thought is: I want to feel this again. Not once, but a thousand times.”

We firmly believe that every sport is, in its own way, a form of art. What, in your view, makes high diving an art form in its own right? When you perform, do you ever feel like an artist as much as an athlete?

“I do. More broadly, just as you believe, I think every sport has an artistic dimension. Acrobatic disciplines, in my view, have something more in that respect. In our sport, for example, elegance is fundamental. One of the compliments I receive most often is precisely about the elegance of my diving. So, in my own way, yes: I do feel like an artist as well. It’s something I care about deeply.”

Indeed, you are considered one of the most elegant divers on the circuit. What, in your view, determines the elegance of a dive? More broadly, how do you recognise each diver’s individual style?

“I think everyone is, in some way, born with their own style. Over time, you can shape it and guide it in a certain direction, but the underlying character remains more or less the same. Some divers rotate incredibly fast, some are exceptionally fluid, others particularly elegant. In my case, I can’t take all the credit. Ever since I was a child, I was taught to pay attention to every minute detail, to every single moment of a dive: from the tips of my toes to the tips of my fingers. Little by little, that degree of technical attention became instinctive. Then, when I realised that elegance was genuinely a quality that could give me something more, I decided to keep developing it… And that is why, even today, elegance remains one of the qualities people recognise in my diving, and something that adds value to every dive I perform.”

You love anime and manga. How does that passion find its way into your approach to high diving? And if you were the protagonist of a manga or anime, what kind of character would you be?

“Although a lot of people see anime and manga as a childish passion, I don’t see them that way at all. They can convey lessons that I struggle to find expressed with the same clarity and directness elsewhere. They may appear light-hearted, but they confront you very clearly with certain mindsets and philosophies: never giving up, for instance, or always trying to get back up when you fall… Last year, for example, I came close to having two accidents. On both occasions, I lost my bearings during the dive; I was fortunate not to hurt myself. I remember coming out of the water and thinking: ‘That’s it, I’m done.’ I was acutely aware of what I had just experienced. It might sound trivial, but after moments like that, I’ll watch an anime and see a character get knocked down, stand back up and try again, and I think: ‘Damn, if he can do it, even if he’s a cartoon character, then I can do it too.’ It’s a mentality I associate with that world, perhaps with Japanese culture more broadly, and one that resonates deeply with me. I would definitely see myself as the one who tries to keep the group together, because in some ways I already feel that I play that role. At the pool or during competitions, I often notice when someone is going through a difficult moment or feeling the pressure more intensely. I’m always the one who tries to lift everyone else’s spirits. Ultimately, I’m someone who always tries to enjoy myself. I don’t like thinking: ‘I’m here for the competition, and nothing else…’ Of course, every competition matters, but it takes up only an hour, two at most, of your day. Everything else is there to be lived.”

In light of everything we’ve discussed, what does high diving represent in your life today? And what does it mean to travel to such different parts of the world through the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series?

“I firmly believe that diving is the sport for me because it aligns perfectly with the way I am: the adrenaline, living in the moment, the desire to experience new things… Imagination plays an important role, too. I can immerse myself in a dive simply by imagining it and, partly because of that, I think I have a strong awareness of what is happening while I’m in the air. My sport, in all its forms, is something that feeds my creativity, and the reverse is equally true. My mind travels a lot. And then there are all the places this sport allows me to experience… Every time, you board a plane and travel somewhere you’ve never been before. Even when you return to the same place a year later, you know something will have changed. I find that incredible. We went to Bali, and I had never seen anything like it: the sea, the cliffs and, directly in front of us, an enormous statue of Medusa… You would begin the dive and find yourself facing it. It was spectacular: just as Polignano is.”