Cliff Diver Eleanor Smart

Cliff Diver Eleanor Smart – Story by Garuda

       “Climate change” and “environment” – major buzzwords among pro athletes nowadays. Most of the time, passion and spirit fade away after a few social media posts and pictures. Eleanor Smart is one of the exceptions. Smart, 26, is a professional cliff diver and a genuine environmentalist from Missouri in the USA. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in Media Studies in 2015. While also pursuing a career in Professional Cliff Diving, she began a master’s degree in sports psychology. While Smart was competing in a cliff diving tournament in Greece, her foot got tangled in a plastic bag after diving into pristine water. The incident opened her eyes, and she felt an urge to do something to prevent pollution. Since then, she has devoted herself to cleaning up the world’s oceans, one beach at a time. She and fellow diver Owen Weymouth from Plymouth, England, founded “The Clean Cliffs Project” – http://www.cleancliffsproject.org/ – an initiative to prevent plastic pollution and educate people on ways to maintain our natural resources.

“I feel so blessed to have found cliff diving and I want to share that with others while also giving back. From the very first time I went cliff jumping I noticed how polluted these absolutely stunning places were and it broke my heart which lead me to the idea of the ‘The Clean Cliff Projects.’ At the end of the day, being able to cliff dive professionally is a dream come true but being able to give back and have a positive impact on something bigger than myself is the most important thing to me.” Says Eleanor.