By Paul Eddison

GARY Hunt gave up on his Olympic dreams in his early 20s after losing a competition to 12-year-old Tom Daley and 11-year-old Jack Laugher.

But now, three decades after he first took up the sport and having established himself as the greatest cliff diver of all time, Hunt finally fulfilled his Olympic dream – and in front of a home crowd in Paris to boot.

The 40-year-old was born in Leeds, where he started diving before later moving to Southampton at the age of 16.

He was good enough to represent Team England at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, but when Daley and Laugher, a decade his junior, got the better of him, he realised that the next generation had already surpassed what he could do.

Hunt gave up on 10-metre platform diving, instead turning his attentions to the heady heights of cliff diving from 27 metres, winning a record 10 Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series.

It was during that time that he met his French wife, Sabine, eventually taking French nationality in 2018.

His story then came full circle at the Aquatics Centre in Paris, as Hunt went up against Daley one last time, competing alongside Lois Szymczak in the men’s synchronised 10m platform.

Hunt said: “It was so nice to have the Games here, close to England and in Paris. My wife is here, my stepdaughter is here, my sisters are here. It’s special for me having them come to this, my last 10-metre competition. It’s an amazing way to leave this sport. I will continue with the 27 metres. But to be able to thank the crowd and finish on a nice dive was a special send-off.

“Watching Tom Daley and Jack Laugher come into the British Championships, there was one competition where they both beat me on platform when they were 11 and 12 years old. I was in my 20s.

“I’d rather quickly put 10-metre behind me. I saw this career ahead of me of 27 metres. For many years, I thought it would be impossible to go back to 10-metre. I didn’t even get to come to London 2012 to watch the Games because I had chicken pox.

“I was stuck in quarantine with a bad internet connection. I was really disappointed to see all my friends going and watching the event. Little did I know, 12 years later, that I would get this opportunity.”

The differences between indoor platform diving and high dives from cliffs are enormous and so it was little surprise to see Hunt and Szymczak finish eighth of eight, in a final where Daley completed the full set of Olympic medals by taking silver alongside Noah Williams.

They were greeted to huge cheers with every dive, but so was adopted Frenchman Hunt, whose initial reason for returning to the pool was as much psychological as patriotic.

He explained: “I got the dual nationality in 2018 and we knew the Olympics were coming to France at that point. It was at the end of 2017 when I had a twisting problem like Simone Biles.

“It was because of that, that I started doing 10-metre again. I wanted to dive but my twisting dives were becoming too much for me. So, I decided to do 10-metre again. It was thanks to that mental block that I got confidence enough to get back into 10-metre.

“Now my wife is French, it just felt natural for me. And then with Paris, the Olympics, that lit a lightbulb in my head. Maybe? Maybe I can dust off the 10-metre dives.

“In my career, I’ve never been the best diver, but I loved it so much that I saw some of my friends eventually drop off and I just kept going. So, after 30 years of persistence and hard work, I got to have this opportunity.”

Three decades from when he first took up the sport, and nearly two since a pair of kids got the better of him, a diver from Leeds finally got his Olympic moment.

Watch every moment of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 live only on discovery+, the streaming home of the Olympics.