By David Blackwell
Wales’ Aidan Heslop was full of pride after he was crowned cliff diving world champion on Sunday as the world’s elite competed in a season finale in Sydney for the second time.
Heslop finished fifth on the day but it was enough to see him clinch his first world championship title with 121 points, 14 ahead of James Lichtenstein of the United States.
“I wanted to finish with a bang, I knew the trophy was very much within reach but to do it with an awesome dive to finish is a great feeling,” said Heslop, who was born in Chelmsford but qualified to represent Wales at the Commonwealth Games through a Welsh mother.
Aidan Heslop has become the youngest diver to win the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series at the age of 22 #BBCSport
— BBC Sport Wales (@BBCSportWales) November 10, 2024
The Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series sees divers compete from a 27m (88ft) high platform.
Each diver is scored on four different dives, and the winner of each stage is the competitor with the highest collective score.
Heslop won four of the eight stages in 2024, winning in the United States, Canada, Turkey and Northern Ireland.
With the event back in Sydney Harbour, overlooking the Opera House and Harbour Bridge where it was first hosted in 2022, the competitors executed their final dives of the season at speeds of around 85 kph.
The men performed their acrobatic dives from a platform 27 metres above the water, while the women launched from 21 metres.
Australia’s Rhiannan Iffland lifted a record eighth title after having wrapped up the women’s championship on the penultimate leg of the eight-event season.
She won the day’s event with 359.70 points, ahead of Canada’s Simone Leathead (325.25) and Nelli Chukanivska of Ukraine (306.90).
“That was a magical moment here, standing up there and getting the crowd going and just enjoying the moment,” Iffland said.
“I was super nervous but as soon as I saw the crowd I was just full of energy, so it was very, very special.”
Ukraine’s Oleksiy Prygorov won the day’s men’s event with a score of 405.80 points, ahead of Carlos Gimeno of Spain (397.40) and Romania’s Constantin Popovici (366.10).
Wales’ World Champion Aidan Heslop Seeks Olympic Glory . . . in 2032