A cliff diver talks about pressure

Matthias Appenzeller stands on the 10 meter platform and jumps off. He is practicing for his new parade jump from 27 meters, his most difficult, which had recently catapulted him into the top 15 in the world: a triple forward somersault with three and a half twists. When he opens up after the rotations, he hits his feet on a metal platform that is installed below the jumping platform in “Area 47” in the Ötztal.

Matthias Appenzeller still doesn’t know what the problem was on that August day last year. A split second delay in timing perhaps. A few centimeters deviation when taking off. What is clear is that his sports career took a turn in those seconds.

The bleeding cut on the foot is not the problem. Appenzeller wraps tape around the wound and jumps on. Top divers are used to this kind of thing; unconditional mental strength is part of their profile. There is no room for doubt. As a child, Appenzeller hit his head on the board, broke his foot and slipped violently while bouncing. Nothing has thrown him off course.

But this time something is different. In the evening in bed, Appenzeller doesn’t have his usual resting heart rate between 40 and 50, but a heart rate like after interval training. He feels like he can no longer breathe, can no longer swallow, and lies there frozen. He can’t stand being touched. He says: “I felt powerless.” It’s just the beginning of a year of panic attacks, anxiety disorders and mental blocks. He fluctuates between improvements and relapses.

Work and top-class sport at the same time

Fainting is a feeling that the 30-year-old from Appenzeller did not know before his accident. He was a top athlete all his life and as a young athlete wanted to qualify for the Olympic Games as a high diver. When that didn’t work, he studied law and is now an assistant public prosecutor. Up to 60 hours of work per week, plus 2 to 3 hours of training every day, that was the norm. “I always put myself under a lot of pressure everywhere, I kind of needed it,” he says.

After taking a break from diving to study, he discovered the supreme discipline, cliff diving or high diving from 27 meters. In this world everything is more extreme. The danger and the pressure, but also the feeling of happiness. Of the 20 or so Swiss cliff divers, not even a handful climb the 27-meter tower. Those who do it can’t get away from it. “The need to keep getting better and going further can go to your head,” says Appenzeller, who has long enjoyed being part of this myth and traveling around the world with the entourage. “When things are going well, it’s easy to lose yourself in competitive sports.”

For hundreds of years, people have been jumping from great heights into the sea, in Kaunolu, Hawaii, or Acapulco, Mexico. The World High Diving Federation was founded in 1996, but soon fell out with a sponsor. He turned the sport into a business and brought it from remote cliffs to the people: Red Bull’s Cliff Diving World Series has been touring the world since 2009. The company, which is notorious for its spectacular and sometimes borderline sporting events, sets up its jumping platform in visually effective locations.

The international swimming association has now introduced the 27 meters as a high diving category, there is a world cup, world championships and the goal of becoming an Olympic athlete.

Matthias Appenzeller says that from 20 meters onwards, every additional meter is a giant step and the risk of injury increases significantly. The jumpers hit the water from a height of 27 meters at 85 km/h. The body can’t handle more than three or four jumps a day, and even then “you feel like you’ve been run over by a steamroller.”

This happens almost exclusively at competitions, because you can hardly train for jumps from 27 meters. There are only three permanent facilities in the world, in Austria in Tyrol, where Appenzeller’s accident occurred, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and one in China.

He visions a jump two thousand times

The athletes therefore practice the jumps from the 10 meter in two parts: on the one hand the rotations, on the other hand the preparation for the landing. This is how the strange height of 27 meters came about: for the best jumpers in the world at the time, this number made the most sense.

In addition to the physical training, they visualize the jumps a hundred times, a thousand times, two thousand times. It is meticulous work, a refinement to perfection. If something wasn’t right for Appenzeller, he would bang his head against the wall: repress it and push through it, “somehow it would work out.”

Even after his accident in August 2023, Appenzeller continues to jump. Some jumps make him feel good, but sometimes the panic attacks get worse again. He puts pressure on himself not to give space to fear, which only increases it. Appenzeller says about this time: “Simpler and simpler exercises seemed almost impossible to me. The doubts that came with it made the tasks seem increasingly difficult.”

Because in these moments he feels like he has failed as a competitive athlete, he puts even more pressure on himself in other areas of life. Until everything implodes.

The panic attacks also occur in his free time: before a golf shot, before he lifts a weight in strength training. Working with a sports psychiatrist helps, but does not solve the problem on the diving platform. He often goes to the indoor swimming pool only to turn back.

After a long break from diving in the winter and a slight improvement, Appenzeller decided to take part in the World Championships in February 2024. During training he even managed to do the jump that started everything. But on the day of the competition nothing works during the preparation jump. “For the first time I had the feeling of being powerless in the air,” says Appenzeller. After that he only managed simple jumps and withdrew from the world championships.

It’s a difficult step for the top athlete who has learned all his life not to show weakness. First he talks about it on site, people congratulate him on the decision to stop. But the pressure in the scene is huge. While many athletes can start in the World Cups, there are only 12 starting places each for men and women in the lucrative Red Bull series. 8 of these places are allocated to the world’s best, and the remaining 4 are competed against 30 jumpers. “You’re not exactly advertising yourself when you say you have such mental problems that you can no longer make a jump,” says Appenzeller.

 

How athletes respond to psychological challenges is so individual that it is difficult to benefit from the experience of others. Nevertheless, Appenzeller would like to see an open discussion about how blockades can be dealt with better. That not only medical staff would be available on site at the events, but also mental support, a kind of link between the affected athlete and the organization.

Video call with Orlando Duque. The Colombian is the sports director of Red Bull Cliff Diving and one of the most famous former cliff divers. He doesn’t think that having a carer on site for the three days would be the solution. This person would have to know the several dozen jumpers, their backgrounds and current problems, that would be impossible.

But he also says that the topic of mental problems comes up much more often than before and he recommends everyone affected to seek professional help. “Twenty years ago we all saw ourselves as crazy and strong.” No weaknesses were shown. This should be different for the next generation. At Red Bull High School, a training camp for the greatest talents, mental aspects are now an important part of the program.

“I suddenly didn’t know where I was anymore”

There are definitely athletes in the cliff diving scene who, like Appenzeller, speak openly. The Mexican Jonathan Paredes, for example. In the “Pathway to Change” podcast he tells how he lost control while jumping from 27 meters. “I suddenly didn’t know where I was anymore.” He landed on his back but escaped with bruises. But he was mentally blocked for a long time.

To people who don’t know what this situation feels like on the platform, he explains it like this: “It’s like waking up at night and wanting to run to the toilet. I know every step of the way, but I don’t know how to start.” He has now made the jump again, but the fear of another blackout accompanies him.

Matthias Appenzeller doesn’t yet know exactly where his sporting path will take him. He has been working at the Zurich-Sihl public prosecutor’s office since September and resolves to listen more to himself and not approach everything too doggedly.

He learned strategies on how to react during an anxiety attack. And above all, fighting against it doesn’t help. “I have to accept that it’s part of me,” he says. And he also goes home from training if things don’t work out that day.

In July, he felt the joy of jumping for the first time again on the rocks of Ponte Brolla in Ticino in the presence of his friends and family. He always tries to remind himself that even competitive sports should be fun. “But it is a daily struggle not to let negative emotions overwhelm you and to reflect on your own abilities.”

He thought for a long time whether he wanted to talk publicly about his experiences. But now he is not only concerned with his case, but he also hopes to further weaken the taboo against talking about his weaknesses. “If I can help someone, that’s wonderful.”