Cliff diver Gary Hunt hopes for gold at 2024 Olympics after nationality switch

Hunt won bronze at the 2006 Commonwealth Games with Callum Johnstone in the men's synchronized 10 metre platform.

Cliff diver Gary Hunt, who won world gold for Britain last year, has switched nationality and aims to compete for France in the 10m event at the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

The 36-year-old has won 10 global titles in his 27m discipline, which is more than the combined total Tom Daley and Jack Laugher have achieved in their respective events.

Hunt moved to France in 2010 to work in diving entertainment shows while also claiming the first of his eight Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series that year.

Uncertainties around Brexit and the prospect of competing at an Olympics in his adopted home city of Paris motivated him to take up French citizenship last year.

"It wasn't an easy decision," the diver told BBC Sport.

"There are a lot of unknowns around Brexit and how difficult it's going to be travelling around with just a British passport, but France has also become my home.

"With the Olympics coming to Paris in 2024 it would be great to compete for the country I've lived in and with the team I've trained as part of for nearly a decade."

Hunt won his second Fina World title last July in what was his final major competition for Britain and with more than 12 months having passed since that event, he was finally cleared to compete for France last weekend at the Crimea High Diving World Cup, which he won.

'I didn't want to be Daley's rival again'

Despite winning eight overall World Series titles, Hunt says competing for England in the 3m and 10m events in 2006 are among his biggest career highlights.

He and Callum Johnstone actually finished third in the synchronised 10m platform final, but were not awarded the bronze medal as only four nations took part in the competition.

Within a few years though he was leaving those events behind though and moved to France where he was paid to dive in entertainment shows, which are popular on the continent.

He also took up cliff diving where he would leap from heights just short of 30m.

"I was probably 22 years old and saw this 10-year-old appear who was able to do things I'd spent my entire career trying to achieve and it was a little tough," says Hunt with a smile.

"You could just see immediately Tom Daley was a star in the making, so I started to look at other opportunities and once I tried high diving I never looked back."

With high diving not currently part of the Olympic line-up and unlikely to be so until LA 2028 at the earliest, Hunt's only chance to reach future Games is by returning to the 10m event.

Daley has suggested he may continue beyond the Tokyo Olympics, so Hunt's prospects are undoubtedly stronger competing for France.

"It's exciting and funny to think that so late on in my career I'm now back to having the same dream of competing in an Olympics"

Why not target the Tokyo and Paris Olympics?

Hunt finished third as a guest at the French National Diving Championships last year and would need to be ranked in the top two in order to be in contention for future Olympics.

He feels that four years' training will better prepare him for a place at the 2024 Games in Paris, where he lives.

"Realistically it's going to take me time to get all of my dives ready and also used to landing on my head again - don't forget we land on our feet in high diving," he explains.

"It's exciting and funny to think that so late on in my career I'm now back to having the same dream of competing in an Olympics that I had over 20 years ago."

Will he sing the French national anthem?

Given he is able to throw himself from incredible heights during competition - and perform countless other terrifying stunts he has posted online - you may think Hunt is somewhat fearless, but that is not entirely the case.

"I'm quite shy when it comes to singing," admits Hunt while laughing. 'I've never sung the British national anthem so I won't be singing La Marseillaise.

"I had to do it with a group of people when I got my official passport last year, but that might have been the last time."

Hunt plans to compete in both high diving and 10m platform competitions once regular competitions are re-established following the global Covid-19 health crisis.