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MY LIFE ON THE EDGE
CALI
BARCELONA
GÄNSERNDORF
TAKE-OFF
MY BODY
THE WHOLE WORLD
ROCK ’N’ ROLL
AESTHETICS
TOMORROW
SLO-MO
How does it feel to stand on a platform high above the water? How does it feel to fly through the air and to know if everything has worked as planned only at the last second? How does it feel to disappear underwater and be alone for a few seconds, isolated from the world, enveloped in a heavenly silence?
Over the last three decades, I was given the chance to discover the answers to these questions more intensely than most. What’s more, I have seen the most beautiful places on our planet. I’ve dived into turquoise oceans; from houses, bridges, helicopters, from trees in the Amazon and even from an iceberg in the Antarctic. I have met great people and discovered new cultures. I have loved, suffered and won.
I am eternally grateful for my sport, my passion, which has taken me from humble beginnings to the heights of the international Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series.
This wonderful journey is best told through images. At the same time, I have tried to put into words what was going through my head. Cliff diving is basically a very simple sport. All you need is a takeoff point and deep water. The rest is up to you. You decide what to do with those two ingredients and the tiny window of complete freedom.
Over the next 204 pages, I invite you to immerse yourself in my life as a cliff diver.
Orlando Duque
Cali, August 2019
Cali
One of my first jumps captured in a photo. I’m eight years old here and we’re visiting friends at their weekend house. Notice the body tension!
I was the boy who always went straight ahead. The alley to the left: better not. The alley to the right: nope.
always go straight ahead. This was my home: Colombia. Cali, one of the drug strongholds of the 1980s. My head up, my tracksuit jacket as a superhero cape. I wasn’t much taller than the shoulder line of the SUVs that the drug lords liked to drive. “Hey kid, how’s it going?" “Good thanks boss, and you?” “I can’t complain, business is good. By the way, good luck kid with your next competition!” “Thanks boss.” And I keep walking straight on.
When I was young I walked everywhere. If ever my mother gave me money to catch the bus, I saved it to spend on more sensible things, like something to eat or drink, because I never minded going places on foot. Back and forth, half an hour each way, completely normal. I remember I spent most of my childhood outdoors. If I cast my mind back to my first memories, I see a wide road with tall trees and a bunch of kids around me.
Growing up as a boy in South America in the 1980s automatically meant football. I can’t say I was a particularly talented footballer, but I probably wasn’t bad either, I actually can’t remember. Football was simply part of everyday life; it was how you spent your time, day in, day out.
We DUQUES were a fairly normal family in Cali, as normal as you could be in Colombia at that time. In retrospect, very little was normal in this country in those days, but as a kid you got used to it. Children are special. Somehow you already knew as a youngster that it would be dangerous to take a left or a right down certain lanes. The drug cartel stories that we know from television series are not exaggerated. Drugs and crime were rife in Cali then, and it took some strong parenting to save you from the very real dangers of turning down the wrong lane. The challenge every day was to walk a straight path and never veer off-track, even later as a teenager when the temptation became greater and greater.
Some of my teenage friends succumbed to the temptations. They got caught up in the drug scene, others were murdered, some are still doing time in jail or got into some other trouble. Several became really rich. I, on the other hand, was the boy who stayed on the straight and narrow. My parents had taught me this.
My father FELIX worked at a fruit and vegetable market; my mother JAEL stayed at home and cooked. Not just for us – she also sold food to the workers in the nearby factories and earned some money. My mother was a hard-working woman. Thanks to her, we always had enough money. Never much, but always enough. My brother HERNANDO is five years older than me, and my sister AUDREY is seven years younger. My dad didn’t live with us, but he was always there for us and we always had a decent relationship. Sadly, he passed away more than ten years ago. I learned from my mother that money doesn’t grow on trees. You have to get up every day and earn a living. I learned that discipline is a virtue. That now sounds harsher than it actually felt at the time, because my childhood was really wonderful and carefree. Was I good at school? Not at first; I simply wasn’t that interested. Mathematics, geography, sport? Great! The rest? Not really.
Towards the end of my high school years, my drumming career had reached its zenith. Our cover band even gave concerts. What’s missing? The long hair!
In 2015 at the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series event in Colombia, my mother and sister (here with my wife in the middle) saw me live in action for the first time.
I was often inattentive, at times mentally or physically absent, and obviously that got me into trouble. My teachers would constantly tell my mother that her middle child was definitely no dummy, but he was somewhat disinterested. And it was true, because, for the most part, I found larking around outside far more fun than lessons.
My mother? She held a mirror up and brought it home to me that school was my job. That I should kindly make an effort because education was good for me, because only school, a certain diligence and discipline, of course, would help me. That it was a privilege to get an education – a privilege that she hadn’t had the chance to enjoy when she was young. That when you do a job, do it properly, full stop. This wasn’t negotiable; it was the iron law of the Duques, enforced by my mother as the judge and the jury. Attempts to revolt against it were doomed to fail, and as a result I slowly got my stuff sorted, my grades improved and gradually I began to develop an interest in other subjects such as physics and chemistry. As the years went by I actually turned into a pretty good student and ultimately graduated with distinction. Thinking about it now, I can’t really put my finger on what caused my initial lack of motivation. I would like to lay the blame on the rigid, antiquated school system, but to a certain extent it was probably my fault. I wasn’t stupid; I just didn’t want to learn – even though I knew I should sit down and finish my homework, because there was no way around it anyway. How my attitude and work ethic could change so dramatically in my life!
As a kid there was nothing that I developed a real passion for. If I had to choose one thing, then it would have probably been sport. Football, then eventually judo. I thought judo was really good, but in my memory it was the white uniform with the different coloured belts that really appealed. For a while I even wore my judo gear on the streets. I competed in a few competitions, not only in Cali but also in other cities, but I have to say in hindsight that my judo was more a rough-and-tumble child’s play than a serious sport.
I wasn’t a big fighter, which was not the norm in my environment. When I had a brawl it was mostly with my big brother, the way brothers like to rough-house: totally serious, no one wants to give in, but with brotherly love. The age difference put me at a distinct disadvantage, but that didn’t stop me from trying over and over again. I was always finding reasons for a good fight. I think everyone who has siblings knows what I’m talking about. I remember one situation very clearly. I took Hernando’s basketball and didn’t want to give it back, whereupon he gave me a good thrashing. I don’t know why I can recall this particular scene so vividly, because there were dozens of similar situations. What I can say though, is that our fights were never vicious or mean, and our relationship has been respectful over the years, full of love and appreciation.
My brother Hernando was my big brother, and not only because of the age difference. I’ve only ever known him as a serious, reliable person who strives to do better. He is someone who appreciates education, who is eloquent and who dresses elegantly. For him, our mother’s ideas fell on fertile ground: make something of yourself so that you have it easier. His goal was to be the manager of a large company, to make a difference, to go abroad and earn good money. For him, no price was too high, and if my parents were industrious, he was even more so. He has shown me that you should set yourself big goals – and that they are indeed achievable with honest, hard work.
Hernando has made his way: he completed his business studies and became the manager of a large hotel in Chicago. Today he manages restaurants, is always making new plans and is full of energy. A clever, good-looking guy, well dressed as always, and head of his own big family. He is leading the life that he mapped out for himself as a teenager – the life our mother wanted for him.
In fact, the same applies to my sister. Audrey, the baby of the family, the girl, the late arrival, finished her studies long ago and today works for one of the country’s major financial service providers. All of us kids have done something with our lives that our parents can be proud of. They gave us the right foundations, even if my path took a very different turn from that which a parent might expect. Sometimes I think I was lucky that Hernando took such a clear and straight career path. That probably took the pressure off my mother. But even later, as I was approaching my 40th birthday, she would still take me to one side and insist that I finally finish my university studies.
I can’t thank her enough for being so far ahead of her time. She, who toiled from dawn to dusk, who wasn’t allowed to get a classical education, has made our careers possible: through rigour, belief in advancement, effort and hard work, but also by helping us to believe in ourselves and allowing us to experiment. You fall on your face? Then get up and find another way. Do it differently. Do it better. Don’t stay down. Try a new approach. Whenever I had a new idea, she was the first to say, “Do it.” For this I’ll be eternally grateful to her. Without even realising it, she laid the foundation for my career – as unlikely as it was.
Financially, we just got by. It’s not that we went hungry – our meals were always excellent – but there was no question of luxury. When we went on vacation we took the bus. My grandmother lived around 150 kilometres south of Cali. The climate there was much more temperate than here in the tropical big city. To be at my grandmother’s in the summer holidays with my cousins, picking fruit straight off the tree and romping around in the mountains all day long, is one of my most wonderful childhood memories. That was the kind of luxury our mother gave us. We even visited Ecuador once, and another time we went on a tour around the north of the country, almost up to the Caribbean. Somehow she always managed to do it all. “Come on, let’s go” … and off we went.
The football field was in a sports complex, about 20 to 30 minutes away on foot, depending on how fast you walked. The facility also had basketball and volleyball courts plus a swimming pool. At the end of each football match we would meet there and watch the swimmers. It was pretty boring for us, but then we discovered a second pool: Deep. Dark. Blue tiled. It was the pool for divers. That was something completely different! It was exciting, it was fascinating, it was an allure that we couldn’t resist. From then on, the football matches ended up here at the dark pool.