Objectives To describe the incidence, severity, burden and sport specific characteristics of injuries reported in elite diving athletes. Design Descriptive epidemiology study. Methods Medical attention and time-loss injuries from 63 (43 female, 20 male) Australian national diving program athletes were prospectively collected over four seasons (September 2018-August 2022). Injury incidence rates (IIR) and injury burden were calculated, standardised per 365 athlete days, and compared across groups using negative binomial generalised linear models. Results In total 421 injuries were reported (female=292, male=129) at an IIR of 2.36 (95%CI=2.14-2.60) per 365 athlete days, which was comparable between sex (Incidence rate ratio=0.97; 95% CI=0.73-1.27, p=0.807). Annual injury prevalence ranged from 70.0-85.1%. Approximately two-thirds of injuries (n=283, 67.2%) resulted in a period of time-loss, at an IIR of 1.58 (95%CI=1.41-1.78). The overall injury burden was 91days absence (95%CI=81-102) per 365 athlete days. Stress fractures in springboard diving athletes incurred the largest mean days of time-loss compared to other injured tissue types. Majority of injuries were reported to occur during training (n=334, 79.3%) as opposed to competition (n=10, 2.4%), with more than half (n=233, 55.3%) of all reported injuries occurring during pool training sessions. The mechanism of injury was most frequently reported as occurring during either take-off (27.8%) or water entry (30.4%). Conclusions Annual injury prevalence reported in competitive Australian diving athletes was found to be very high. Contrary to existing literature, competitive diving injuries were reported to occur within the daily training environment, with few injuries occurring during competition. Notable differences in the injury profile between springboard and platform competitive diving athletes were observed.
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