Daring Quebec cliff diver reaches for new heights

Lysanne Richard isn't afraid of heights.

Turning 40 this year, the Quebec athlete is setting the bar higher and higher in her career as a professional high diver.

Richard, originally from Chicoutimi, Que., has won competitions all over the world and represented Canada at the 2015 World Aquatics Championships.

Now, she's training to pull off some even more incredible stunts like jumping out of a hot-air balloon into a pool.

"​I want to bring high diving to different situations where we do not expect," she told CBC.

She's been working on developing her hot-air balloon dive since 2016, but someone else did it first.

Undaunted, Richard said that means hers will have to be even better.

"We're going to do higher and more difficult dives and more impressive. So we are working on the different way of putting the bar higher about this challenge," she said.

For Richard, who has been diving since she was a child, the act itself isn't nerve-wracking.

"It's really like a moment of meditation in the air."