MULTIPLE times a winner in the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series, Great Britain’s Gary Hunt is not about done and is still in search for more titles.
The first-leg winner of the 2019 cliff diving world series that was recently held in El Nido, Palawan, Mr. Hunt said he will try use the victory as a jump-off point to propel his quest for an eighth Red Bull title even as he said the competition has become tougher.
Finishing with 427.25 points in the Palawan leg of the seven-stop cliff diving world series, Mr. Hunt topped the men’s division, joined by Constantin Popovici (409.40) of Romania at second and Jonathan Paredes (408.05) of Mexico at third on the podium.
The 34-year-old Briton said he is happy with the result and that he looks to stay consistent for the remainder of the season to put him in a better position to win the overall title.
“In every competition I intend to win but ultimately the goal is to stay consistent. Some of the divers now have great dives and even if I have a good dive they can still win at any time. I just want to stay consistent and keep my scores high,” Mr. Hunt shared following his first-leg victory on April 13.
He went on to say that in the last couple of years he has had his struggles but has moved past them and that he is now competing with a newfound love for the sport.
“Definitely I have my ups and downs. Last winter it was definitely tough for me. I lost the title in 2017 and had some problems with my dives. I managed to solve those problems through the course of last season and it gave me love for the sport once again. And I enjoyed every training session I had and it showed in my performance today,” said Mr. Hunt, who won the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series from 2010-2012, 2014-2016 and in 2018.
Moving ahead, Mr. Hunt said he expects the competition to get tougher with new divers like Mr. Popovici and Ukraine’s Oleksiy Prygorov positioning themselves as forces to reckon with apart from steady challenge from veterans Steven LoBue and Andy Jones of the United States, Mr. Paredes, and Great Britain’s Blake Aldridge.
“It’s going to be a challenging season once again,” Mr. Hunt said. — Michael Angelo S. Murillo
