Maximizing Diver Score by Examining Discrepancies in Diver Competency and Judges' Marks

Abstract: Central to diving competitions is the diver's ``dive list'', which is the list of dives an athlete will perform during a competition. Creating a dive list that contains enough difficulty to be competitive yet not beyond the capability of the diver is an important consideration in diving. In this work, we examine the discrepancy between a diver's ability and judges' scores in springboard diving meets with the purpose of discovering biases in scoring that might aid a diver in completing a dive list. As a measure of the ability of a diver, we calculate a mean score for all dives and all meets in which the diver has participated. We call this mean score a diver's competency score. We use the difference between judges' scores within a given meet and the diver's competency to define a discrepancy: the difference between a judge's estimation of a diver's ability and their true ability. The notions of competency and discrepancy are applied to a data set, gathered from divemeets.com for high-school one meter diving competitions in the US from 2017 to 2022.