XANTHEIA Pennisi finished in the middle of the pack in the season-opener of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series 2025 in El Nido, Palawan over the weekend.
But still being one of only a dozen who can call themselves the best female cliff divers in the world gives the Filipino-Australian extreme athlete full of hope of a bright future ahead not just for herself, but aspirants as well.
“I just got to work harder and practice more in 20 meters,” Pennisi said of the women’s dive height after placing eighth out of 12 participants in the first of four stops in the World Series this year.
After placing eighth, seventh, and ninth in the first three rounds, Pennisi finished strongly with a fourth-round dive facing forward, starting on a pike position, and executing three somersaults and one-and-a-half twists for a degree of difficulty of four – the third-highest in the round.
Coupled with a clean landing, the dive resulted in her best round with a score of 90, good for sixth spot to help her climb to eighth overall and give her a solid start to the season in her bid to regain permanent status next year.
The 26-year-old half-Filipino athlete finished as the second-highest wildcard entry behind seventh-placer Iris Schmidbauer. Pennisi can even take comfort in the fact that her 261.4 points were just a few behind fourth-placer Meili Carpenter who finished with 280.2 points.
A new arena to conquer for Filipinos
She may have represented Australia, but Pennisi is proud of her Philippine roots in Tarlac and proved Filipinos can taste success in this emerging extreme sport.
“Thank you so much for all the support from the Filipino community and from everyone else watching. I really did feel it and it's really nice to be able to represent both Australia and the Philippines,” she said ahead of the second leg in Italy on June 28-29.
“This sport is very niche, and not many people do it. It's really good to see that there is a diving team in the Philippines there,” she added just two weeks after holding an exclusive diving workshop at New Clark City Aquatic Center.
“I saw the whole team last week and there's probably about fifteen of them learning which is super exciting.”
Pennisi, who’s just two years removed from capturing the World Series bronze, can already see potential for some to join her in this unique sport in the future.
“Yeah, hopefully. I mean, there were a few little gems in there. Some of them are great divers. So, it's really exciting,” she said.
In a country where kids are dreaming to become basketball and volleyball players, Pennisi encourages them to see this alternative path.
“I think it's a great career. If you don't want to go to the Olympics or it's quite difficult to get into, this is a different avenue,” she said. “It's like running a marathon and sprinting. It's a very different sport even though it has the same mechanics.”
“I think it's really exciting for the future generation of Filipino divers to have the opportunity to do some diving,” she concluded.
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