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Who could forget the drama of Greg Louganis's springboard win at the 1988 Seoul Games, nailing his final dive to claim the gold medal after striking his head on the board during the preliminary competition and requiring stitches.
Or the breathtaking city skyline backdrop at the diving competition in Barcelona in 1992.
Grace is a central element of diving, but this year in Sydney it will be taken a step further with the advent of synchronised diving - the first change to the Olympic diving schedule since 1924.
The addition of the pairs to the diving events in Sydney will no doubt add to the visual specatcle of the sport, and that is undoubtedly its big appeal for spectators and viewers.
But there is no doubt that it takes not only grace and elegance to make a world-class diver, but guts as well.
When platform divers hit the water, they are travelling at about the same speed as cars cruising suburban streets.
One mistake can be fatal, and even the elite make mistakes. In the early 1980s, Sergei Chalibashvili died after his head struck the platform while attempting a reverse 3-1/2 somersault in the tuck position.
Divers are judged on their ability to perform manoeuvres in the air between the take-off point and the pool, one of the key scoring criteria being the ability to enter the water smoothly.
These manoeuvres include pikes, tucks, twists and somersaults and can be performed in forward or reverse directions.
Those early competitions were held in ponds, with divers forced to compete for space with other pond users.
The sport made its Olympic debut at St Louis in 1912 under the label "fancy diving".
By today's standards it was anything but fancy, but it was obviously popular. In 1908 springboard diving joined platform diving on the program and by 1920 men and women were competing in both forms of the sport.
As the sport developed, the complexity of the dives increased, with pikes and tucks becoming popular.
Historically, the United States was the strongest diving nation, but that mantle has been well and truly assumed in the past two decades by the Chinese, particularly among the women.
The Chinese domination of late has been almost complete. At the Atlanta Games three of the four gold medals on offer went to Chinese athletes, and at the XII FINA Diving World Cup in January - the Sydney Olympics test event - China won seven of the 10 events.
China's Tian Liang won the men's platform ahead of Russian Dmitry Sautin - one of the top divers in the world over the past few years and the sole non-Chinese gold medallist at Atlanta.
However, Sautin enjoyed more success in the springboard, winning ahead of another Chinese competitor, Xiao Hailiang.
The Russian looks set to be one of the stars in Sydney, having won both the springboard and platform competitions at the 1998 World Championships.
In fact, it's possible that he is the only person standing between the Chinese and a clean sweep of all eight gold medals.
The top seven placing countries in each event qualified for the Sydney Games. They will compete alongside Australia, which qualifies automatically as host nation.
The following nations qualified: men's springboard - China, Mexico, US, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, France; women's springboard - Russia, China, Ukraine, Germany, Mexico, Canada and Switzerland; men's platform - China, Great Britain, Ukraine, Russia, US, France, Germany; women's platform - China, France, Canada, Russia, Austria, Mexico and the US.
Six divers have been named to compete for Australia in Sydney, where five of them will make their Olympic debuts.
Loudy Tourky is the only member of the team to have tasted Olympic experience before. She competed at the 1996 Games in Atlanta.
Australia has not won a medal of any description at Olympic level since Richard Eve triumphed in the high dive at the Paris Games of 1924.
The Australians finished third on the medal tally, behind China and Russia, with two silver and two bronze medals.
Part of the reason for this is the addition of synchronised diving to the program.
The Australians won three of their four medals in the synchronised events - Dean Pullar and Steven Barnett's silver in the springboard, Robert Newbery and Matthew Helm's silver in the platform and Loudy Tourky and Rebecca Gilmore's bronze in the platform.
Pullar also won a bronze medal in the men's one-metre springboard - a non-Olympic event.
With so many solid performances, the Australians will be hoping hometown advantage will lift them into the medal positions.
The team is: Matthew Helm, Robert Newbery, Dean Pullar, Chantelle Michell, Rebecca Gilmore and Tourky.
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Diving is one of the most spectacular, graceful and dramatic sports on the Olympic program.
In total at the World Cup, China won 12 medals - more than the next three nations (Russia, Australia and Canada) combined. Interestingly, the United States failed to win a medal at the meet.
Dean Pullar spoke to the ABC's Bruce Atkinson after his selection in the team.
But, given the form of the Australians at the World Cup event, that dry spell may end in Sydney.
