Gary Hunt

Gary Hunt (born 11 June 1984), also known as Roger Gary Hunt, is an elite sports diver, specialising in cliff or high diving, and is the 2019 World champion in high diving at World Aquatics Championships event, where he holds the championship record.

Hunt is a former Olympic hopeful and Commonwealth diver who has a number of medals at Great Britain National Diving championships and placed 3rd in the 10m Synchro event at the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

He chose to focus his diving career in the niche area of cliff diving, and has enjoyed a rapid rise to the top of the sport.

He qualified for the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006, and placed third in the synchronised 10m platform event with Callum Johnstone.

Hunt first began diving from above 10 metres in 2006 when his coach recommended him for a pirate show in the resort town of Lido di Jesolo.

Hunt suffered from mental issues after the death of his best friend and fellow diver, Gavin Brown, in 2007.

He made his Red Bull debut in 2009.

When not competing, Hunt played a Tarzan-like character at the Walygator Grand-Est in France for several years, where he met his partner, Sabine Ravinet.

2009 marked the beginning of Hunt's professional career in the sport after several years of training and competing in high diving events to build up his confidence and technique.

He was quick to impress and finished 3rd, 3rd, 2nd and 2nd in the first 4 events of the series in France (La Rochelle), Netherlands (Rotterdam), Croatia (Dubrovnik) and Italy (Polignano A Mare).

His impressive start to the season meant he was in 2nd place in the overall championship at the halfway stage, 18 points behind 9-time World Champion Orlando Duque who had been dominating the 2009 season once again.

At the 5th event of the series in Turkey (Antalya), Hunt introduced his first new dive – a previously unattempted back piked 3 somersaults with 4 twists.

The dive has a difficulty rating of 6.2 and is the most difficult dive to be performed in any form of competitive diving.

Although he was only able to finished 3rd at this event, the new dive got a huge amount of attention, opened the eyes of the cliff diving community and began to cement Hunt's reputation as a fearless daredevil who was going to push the sport to new levels.

At the 6th event in Germany (Hamburg), Hunt achieved his first win, again using the triple quad.

After finishing joint 1st in 2009, Hunt immediately resumed his rise to the top in 2010.

Now confident with his 2 extreme dives, Hunt dominated the first event of the year in France (La Rochelle) and won comfortably, achieving scores of 10,10,10,9,9 for his final dive.

At the second event of the year in Mexico (Ik Kil), Hunt extended his lead on the series with another win.

Once again his extreme dives with their high degree of difficulty were credited as the reason for his success.

A good lead in the overall championship allow him to change his front piked 4 somersaults 1.5 twists into 4 somersaults 2.5 twists.

In 2010 he won the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series, the premier championship within the sport, showing complete domination throughout the series and is thus considered to be the current reigning World Champion.

He has a reputation for pushing the sport to new extremes and inventing new moves to stay ahead of his competition.

With Orlando Duque suffering from minor injuries and finishing 4th, Hunt closed the gap in the overall championship to 12 points.

At the 7th event in Switzerland (Sisikon), Hunt came 2nd by the narrowest of margins but was again able to stay ahead of Orlando Duque who finished 3rd.

Hunt closed the gap in the championship to 9 points and was the only diver that could potentially beat Orlando going into the final event.

At the 8th and final event in Greece (Athens), Hunt introduced his 2nd new dive, another very technical dive with a very high difficulty rating – a forward piked 4 somersaults with 1.5 twists.

With his second win of the series, and with Orlando finishing 4th, Hunt tied Orlando on points in the overall championship.

However, Orlando was awarded the overall championship due to the fact that he had won more individual events over the year.

With a silver in the 2013 edition of the event, Hunt is the most successful male diver in the short history of the FINA recognised event.

Hunt quit amusement park performances in 2013.

At the World Aquatics Championships, he won a silver medal in 2013, and a gold medal in 2015 and again in 2019.

He plans to compete for France at the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

Hunt has no coach or agent, and his only corporate sponsor is Budgy Smuggler, an Australian swimwear company.

Competitor Steven LoBue described Hunt as "the Michael Jordan, the Muhammad Ali, the Tiger Woods" of cliff diving.

He acquired French nationality in 2020.

Hunt grew up in Leeds, England, and moved to Southampton after his parents, Pamela and Peter, separated.

As a child, he followed his two older sisters into ballet, tap, modern dancing, and competitive swimming.

Bored by swimming, he switched to diving.

He attended Solent University and joined the Southampton Diving Academy.

Before a meet, Hunt prepares by juggling, which he says slows his mind.