Diving at the 1908 Summer Olympics – Men's 10 metre platform

The competition was actually held from both 10 metre and 5 metre platforms. Divers performed a running plain dive and a backward somersault from the 5 metre platform, a running plain dive and a standing plain dive from the 10 metre platform, and three dives of the competitor's choice from the 10 metre platform.[3] The voluntary dives were selected from a list of 14 options.[4]

Each judge gave a score between 0 and 10 points, in increments of half a point, for each dive. The scores for the voluntary dives were multiplied by the degree of difficulty (difficulty ranged from 1.2 to 2.1 per dive). No degree of difficulty multiplier was used for the compulsory dives. The dive scores from each judge were summed and divided by 3, with the three judges' results added to give a final score. However, the final scores were not technically determinative (except as tie-breakers); after the scores were calculated, each judge ranked the competitors (and could choose to follow the scores or not) and the competition was decided on a point-for-place system with the competitor with the lowest total ranking from the three judges winning. Final scores were used as tie-breakers if this aggregate ranking was tied.[5] In no case was the point-for-place result different for any round from the final scores, however; the Official Report contains only the final scores and not the ordinal rankings from the judges.[6] Indeed, it appears that "the ordinal scores are not recorded in any source" and "the individual judges' scores are not known, so it is not possible to reconstruct the ordinal placements."[2]

The competition was held over three rounds (first round, semifinals, and final). The first round consisted of 5 groups of between 4 and 6 divers each; the top 2 divers in each group advanced to the semifinals. The semifinals consisted of 2 groups of 5 divers each. The top 2 divers in each group advanced to the final. The final featured 5 divers (due to a successful protest leading to an additional diver advancing).

• Cook, Theodore Andrea (1908). The Fourth Olympiad, Being the Official Report. London: British Olympic Association.
• De Wael, Herman (2001). "Diving 1908". Herman's Full Olympians. Retrieved 12 May 2006.