34 Facts About Leigh Diffey

Leigh Diffey was born on 3 March 1971 and is an Australian-American auto racing and track and field commentator.

Leigh Diffey is best known for being the lead play-by-play announcer for much of NBC Sports' motorsports coverage, currently calling NASCAR Cup Series, IMSA sports car races for the network and AMA Supercross.

Leigh Diffey's broadcasting career began by calling motorcycle races in his home country.

Leigh Diffey's career has included stints with Network Ten in Australia and the BBC in the United Kingdom covering various forms of motorsport.

Leigh Diffey grew up in Queensland, Australia, where he briefly raced motorcycles with his friend Daryl Beattie, who eventually became a professional motorcycle racer.

Leigh Diffey covered the 12 Hours of Sebring, an event for he would call for a total of ten years.

Leigh Diffey moved to the United Kingdom in 2000, where he worked as the lead commentator of the Superbike World Championship and presented coverage of the World Rally Championship for the BBC, working alongside Steve Parrish and Suzi Perry.

In 2001, Leigh Diffey moved to the US to cover the American-based open-wheel racing CART series, while still working for the BBC.

Two years later in 2003, Leigh Diffey made a full-time move to the States when he was hired by Speed Channel, which later simply became "Speed".

At Speed, Leigh Diffey was the play-by-play announcer for the network's coverage of the Speed World Challenge, the American Le Mans Series, the Rolex Sports Car Series, the Rolex Grand-Am Cup, the SCCA Trans-Am Series, and a regular anchor of The Speed Report and Speed Center.

Leigh Diffey occasionally filled in for Speed commentator Bob Varsha during the network's Formula One broadcasts.

Leigh Diffey commentated selected rounds of the AMA Superbike and AMA Motocross Championships.

Leigh Diffey worked with Speed to call several sports car races during his tenure with the network, including the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Leigh Diffey covered other two other sports for the Australian network: sailing, hosting coverage of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, and golf, which he covered for five years.

In November 2012, NBC Sports announced that Leigh Diffey would join its network to become the play-by-play announcer for its broadcasts of both Formula One and IndyCar events starting in 2013.

On two occasions, Leigh Diffey covered both series on the same day.

Likewise, on 3 September 2017, Leigh Diffey called the Italian Grand Prix in Connecticut and then traveled to Watkins Glen International for the IndyCar Grand Prix at The Glen.

Leigh Diffey's open-wheel focus shifted solely to IndyCar in 2018 when the US Formula One television rights were transferred to ESPN and they chose to take commentary from Sky Sports insteading of making their own.

Leigh Diffey was one of several recurring co-hosts of NASCAR America, a weekday NBCSN program dedicated to NASCAR.

Leigh Diffey made his Sprint Cup Series broadcasting debut alongside Dale Jarrett at Homestead-Miami Speedway in 2015, leading NBCSN's "Hot Pass" coverage of NASCAR's championship race, which focused solely on the four drivers still eligible for the series championship.

Leigh Diffey reprised this role with Parker Kligerman in the 2016 Homestead race, and again with Jarrett in 2017,2018, and 2019.

On 13 March 2024, it was reported that Leigh Diffey would replace Allen in NBC's NASCAR Cup Series booth shortly after the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Leigh Diffey returned to sports car racing in 2019 as the lead announcer for NBC Sports' coverage of IMSA's WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, beginning with the 2019 24 Hours of Daytona.

Leigh Diffey began calling the AMA Supercross Championship in 2020, working play-by-play for NBC for the series along with Ralph Sheheen.

Leigh Diffey took over the lead commentating role replacing Sheheen starting the 2021 season with Ricky Carmichael, Daniel Blair, and Will Christien.

Leigh Diffey served as a studio host for the network's MotoGP and Moto2 coverage.

Leigh Diffey served as lead announcer for several events of NBCSN's coverage of Red Bull Global Rallycross beginning with the opening event from Fort Lauderdale in the 2015 season.

Leigh Diffey continued to cover the series for the network until the series folded, doing play-by-play for the final round of the 2017 season from the Port of Los Angeles on 14 October.

Leigh Diffey served as the US announcer for the daily world feed highlight broadcast of the Dakar Rally on NBCSN.

Leigh Diffey has worked on NBC's coverage of the Olympic Games, covering luge, skeleton, and bobsled at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.

Beyond the Olympics, Leigh Diffey has covered rugby, anchoring studio coverage of Premiership Rugby and doing play-by-play for the Collegiate Rugby Championship.

Leigh Diffey covered the Prefontaine Classic in 2018, as well as the 2019 World Athletics Championships.

In 2021, Leigh Diffey took over as the NBC track and field commentator, covering both the US Olympic trials and the 2020 Summer Olympics.

At the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, Leigh Diffey botched the call of the men's 100 metre final, hastily declaring Jamaican Kishane Thompson the winner in a photo finish which found American sprinter Noah Lyles officially winning the gold medal.