28-year old Briton Gary Hunt wins Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series for the third time!
Emerald-green water, dramatic rock formations and Omani passion provided the appropriate stage set for the final three-second flights of the year!
5000 enthusiastic spectators witnessed the most thrilling final showdown and the first ever cliff diving competition on Arabian soil in the presence of His Highness Sayyed Tareq bin Shabib Al Said.
In seven stops across Europe, North America and the Middle East in the last 14 weeks the cliff diving elite was put to the test, awarding only the top-five divers from 27 metres with a ticket for the 2013 season.
It was the red-hot final that everybody expected and it was a battle until the very last dive. Leading the standings going into the final round, Orlando Duque (COL) had the honour of taking the season’s last plunge at Wadi Shab, in the Sultanate of Oman. Gary Hunt (GBR), the defending champion had just set the day’s high score of 173.25 points and the pressure was on the Colombian. As soon as he had hit the water it was clear that the higher degree of difficulty had paid off for the Brit, as the judges awarded the same number of points to the two contenders, crowning Gary Hunt (GBR)with the World Series Championship title for the third time. He won by only 1.85 pts, ahead of the nine-time World Champion Duque and rookieDavid Colturi (USA).
Completing the top five positions – the athletes who qualify automatically for next year’s World Series – are Russia’s Artem Silchenko and Americans David Colturi and Steven LoBue.
Almost 300 competition dives, seven different podium finishers and four winners’ faces in natural, urban, remote and unique venues made the fourth season of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series the most awe-inspiring to date.
