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Nine-time world
champion and current leader of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series
2011, Orlando Duque will miss the rest of the season after breaking his
ankle.

The 36-year-old
Colombian, who was taking part in a sky dive in Hawaii, underwent
successful surgery on Thursday, with the injury expected to keep him
out of action for between three and six months.

It’s a major blow
for Duque who had recently returned to some of his best form, but, if
his determination to return from previous setbacks is anything to go
by, then he will not be out of the water for long.

Backdrop of a career in diving

After more than a
decade of Olympic diving, he made the transition to what he calls “the
more natural form of diving.” Duque’s high diving career began in 1995
in Europe where he improved his diving skills, helped at the time by
coach Ken Grove, a former Olympic diver and one of the series’ judges.

In his first world
championships in 1999, he took second place and so began a hugely
successful cliff diving career, the highlight of which saw him become
the first World Series Champion at the series final in Athens, Greece,
in September 2009. The left-hander is a perfectionist whose dedication
is unswerving and, combined with the two new dives he has added to his
repertoire for 2011, the new season will be all the more interesting
and the challenge even greater – for him and his competitors.

Duque worked hard
during the 2010 off-season to recapture his past form and returned to
his dominant best at the start of this year, winning the first two
events, in Rapa Nui and Mexico, and had hoped to make it a hat trick of
wins in Greece on May 22.

With nine world
championship titles and two Guinness world records on his side, the
Colombian cliff diver has proved his tremendous ability over many
years, reaching a special position within the high diving scene over
the last fifteen years.

He was the clear
favourite for the World Series 2009 and of course he measured up to
expectations. He won three competitions, was off the podium only once
and took the overall title. In 2010, the 36-year-old had two new dives
in his programme, took six out of six podiums, including one victory
and finished second overall.

Duque said: “My
plan is to win the title back next year (2011). I will practice a lot,
get back to the gym and do my homework,” was The Duke’s immediate
reaction, after losing the World Series title to Gary Hunt, “but Gary
is going to do exactly the same.”

It left no-one in
any doubt that the fight for the crown had started right after the last
prize-giving in Hawaii. But unfortunately ‘the Duke’ will not be able
to dive to his aims.

But after winning the inaugural Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series
in 2009, Duque ended a testing year in 2010 as the runner-up to Gary
Hunt.