Australia’s reigning diving world champion is scared of heights

Cassiel Rousseau is scared of heights. Which makes his chosen sport, diving, even more of a high-wire act. “I never wanted to do this,” he says baldly. “I was an acrobat as a kid.” After “getting a bit too big to be thrown around”, Rousseau followed his sister to a diving class, at the insistence of his mother. “At first I said no. The idea of jumping off a 10-metre board … I couldn’t do it. I just thought, that’s not for me.”

And yet watching Rousseau dive, it’s unimaginable to think that he hasn’t been doing it since the day he could walk. His athletic body propels itself off the board with both vigour and elegance, barrelling down, torpedoing forth and finally plunging into the water with the daintiest of splashes, a teaspoon into a coffee cup.