Hilarious moment diver flops off board during Olympic pool opening: ‘My back is fine, but my ego…’
French Olympic diver Alexis Jandard made quite the splash at the opening of a new Olympic pool in Paris, but not the way he hoped.
An eye-watering video from the inauguration of the multimillion-dollar Paris Aquatics Center Thursday, which was attended by French President Emmanuel Macron and a gaggle of other dignitaries, shows the 26-year-old Olympian landing awkwardly on his right foot while preparing to take a plunge alongside two other athletes.
Dressed in a Speedo in the colors of the French flag, Jandard is seen in the clip painfully landing on his back, bouncing off the nearly 10-foot-high dive board and tumbling upside-down and sideways into the pool.
Jandard, who competed at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, was a good sport about his embarrassing faux pas, writing on X: “For your information, my back is fine, but my ego…”
In an Instagram story, the athlete shared a photo of his back covered in red scrapes after his run-in with the diving board.
“I’m fine. I didn’t hurt myself, unfortunately these things happen,” Jandard told the outlet RMC Sport. “It happened at a time when I wasn’t expecting it at all.”
“I’ve broken boards before, but the board had never broken me before,” he added. “Now it has. I would have preferred this ceremony to have gone well from A to Z. There was that little hitch. If it made people smile a little, so much the better.
Asked to explain what exactly happened, Jandard said his leg gave way as he landed on it — but he insisted he did not slip.
“It’s a non-slip [board] and what’s more, the board was new, beautiful, and I think there’s still [some of] my back on the board there,” he quipped.
Jandard, who won silver and bronze at the World Aquatics Championships in 2022 and 2023, respectively, laughed off the entire ordeal.
“It’s a shame but it’s funny,” he admitted. “When you take a step back, it’s funny.”
The athlete, who will be competing at the 2024 Paris Games this summer, said that “these thing happen” in his sport, but jokingly lamented that “it had to happen in front of the president and the whole of France. I think we chose the right moment.”
Jandard said he’s been inundating with messages of support, and also others making fun of him for the clumsy plunge.
“Enjoy yourselves, make fun of me,” the athlete said on Instagram. “I seriously deserve it!”
