Aidan Heslop wins world title with 6.2 DD

Gary Hunt called it.

When the 39-year-old two-time world champion who has only missed one podium in world championship history said at the midpoint of the competition that even though his back-three-somersaults-with-four-twists was no longer the hardest dive in the world (as had been for many years), he was still going to use on Day 2 it to slay the young tricksters have been pushing the degree of difficulty even higher.

Or, as Hunt put it on Tuesday, “The young divers are going to come with their new dives and I’m going to try and keep the bar high and see if they can jump over it. We’ll see.”

In the end, only one man cleared the bar. Aidan Heslop of Great Britain, 21, executed what is now the hardest dive in the world: a forward quad with 3½ twists for the win. He debuted the 6.2DD dive at the 2023 world championships where it scored exceptionally well (167.40 points) but last year in Fukuoka, he placed fifth overall.

This year, Heslop was among the top-3 entering the final round. He needed 105.55 points to overtake James Lichtenstein of the US who had leapfrogged from 10^th place into first with only three divers remaining.

Heslop’s 6.2DD whopper scored 151.90 points, for a total of 422.95.

Catalin-Petru Preda of Romania was next. The 2023 silver medallist had ramped up his own difficulty in the second round with a new 6.1DD, but his final dive was a back quad with two twists pike. It landed like a bullet and scored 9.0s and 9.5s, but the multiplier was only 5.1, so it earned 137.70 points for a grand total that was 12.75 points short of Heslop’s.  

So it all came down to Hunt, the leader after three rounds. If he scored more than 129.30 on his final dive, he would win his third world title. He executed his reliable quad-twisting triple (that had once been the hardest dive in the world, with 5.2 DD), and the packed-stadium crowd at Old Doha Port fell into a tense silence as it awaited his score: 119.60.

Not enough for gold. But good for silver – just 9.70 points behind Heslop.

Final standings: Heslop 422.95; Hunt 413.25; and Preda 410.20.

They were the only divers to break 400 points.

Heslop, the gold medalist said, “I’m absolutely ecstatic. A lot of work has gone into this. That reverse twist on the first day was a little bit of a hiccup but today I was really thinking about that big [fourth] dive. I knew if I could put that down, I could be on top of the podium. 

“Being at the forefront of some of the biggest dives nowadays is fun,” he said, but “to deliver those in competition is a completely different story. That [6.2DD] dive has brought me happiness and sadness in different competitions. It’s risky but it’s fun.”

The British-born Hunt collected the silver, his fifth world championship medal, and will now focus on 10m synchro diving at the 2024 Paris Olympics where he will compete for France. The transition between 10m and 27m can be tricky but, as Hunt told the crowd, “For me, diving is diving. In the air, you feel the same. For sure, it’s not easy but I will never forget how to high dive. I’m not going to leave [my career] with a silver medal! I’ll be back!”

Later, Hunt confided, “I was not really expecting to push for the gold medal. To find myself in this situation was a shock. I could not believe it. I pushed the last dive but with the difficulty that Aidan dives, you have to be perfect.”

Bronze-medalist Preda said, “It was a tight one, for all of us. I came to Doha with a new dive. I felt I needed something revolutionary. It was not the best execution, but it was a start – a good start. I’ll take the result and keeping working.”

Also of note: the 2023 World and World Cup champion Constantin Popovici of Romania was in ninth place after two dives and blasted the best dive of round three to add 91.80 points, but a splashy armstand back 3½ with 3 twists (with 6.0DD) scored mostly 4s in the final round. Popovici left Doha ranked eighth, 82.45 points off the lead, and nearly 70 points away from another medal.