During the world championships in Japan, Frederic Sessa from France broke the current dynamic world record by diving a length of 255 meter underwater. The dive time was 2:37 minutes, so an average speed of 1,6m/s (5,8km/h). Pretty fast! Congrats on finally breaking the record (he has attempted it several times before). Below the video of the new record.
http://www.dailymotion.com/videoxdzci5
Today at the 3rd Meditteranea Freediving World Cup, Natalia Molchanova from Russia broke the 7 year old freediving record in the discipline variable weight. She did this by diving to 125 meters depth, while holding her breath and holding onto a weighted sled that went down a line. At 125 meters she went back up again on her own power.
It took her 3:38 minutes to complete the dive. 1:29 minutes to get to 125 meters, which is 1,42 meters per second and 2:09 minutes to get back to the surface (0,98 meters per second). Amazing dive and congrats to Natalia!
The old record was in hands of Tanya Streeter, set on July 19th 2003 with a depth of 122 meters.
AIDA International has just announced that Bill Stromberg, former president of AIDA, will be penalized for his role in the freediving competition last year where Natalia Molchanova broke two world records; the 101 meter constant weight record and the 90 meter free immersion record.
Some high level judges made a complaint against Stromberg, because of his mixed role as organizer of the competition (where only 3 people inscribed), head judge of the competition and personal (paid) coach by the Molchanova family. And now the AIDA Executive board have accepted the complaint with the following measures:
AIDA Russia / organizer: NONE
President of the Jury (Bill Stromberg)
· 6 months suspension as Judge (1st of May 2010 to 1st of November 2010)
· 9 months suspension as Judge Instructor (1st of May 2010 to 1st of February 2011)
· 6 months probation time on all related issues (1st of November 2010 to 1st of May 2011)
· remark; during the 6 months suspension period it will not be allowed to work in or for a workgroup directly or indirectly working on or with the competition and record rules
Judges of the Jury: NONE
Athlete (Natalia Molchanova): both records will be removed as World Records
While Natalia is mentioned last, she is the one most affected by this decision. And how bad it may be for her, it is the only right thing to do for now. At the time being there was already too much ‘noise’ about these record, and I’m glad that AIDA took the right decision in this one. Nobody questions the skills of Natalia Molchanova, but like everybody else, you must follow the rules and if there is any doubt about this, you shouldn’t be rewarded with the record or in that matter even accept the record. My guess is that Natalia thinks the same of this and will prove her strength to everybody with these disciplines within months, making the records official again.
With all the crazy announced depths for today, it looked like war was coming. In the end William Trubridge stands alone with a new world record in his favorite discipline constant no fins. He managed to do a dive to 95 meters in a time of 3:56 minutes. 95 meters deep, without fins… let that sink in for a minute! Amazing…
The other contenders for the constant no fins crown didn’t deliver. William Winram turned early at 56 meters and Herbert Nitsch at 74. But it’s rumored that Herbert just did a training dive today, so who knows what will happen on the last day.
Ryuzo Shinomiya from Japan set a new Japanese constant weight record with a perfect 108 meter deep dive. Alfredo Romo set the Mexican Free Immersion record to 58 meters. Great performances by all!
Only one day to go and one can only hope for some more spectacle. Herbert needs a 86 meter constant no fins dive to win the Suunto Dive-Off challenge. Dave Mullins announced that he will be trying constant weight once more. Complete start list as soon as it’s published.
During the Moscow Open Cup this weekend, Natalia Molchanova improved her own women’s dynamimc with fins world record. With 225 meters she improved her own record from October 2008 by 11 meters.
Natalia, who is 48 years old, remains the dominant freediving woman in the scene with this being her 29th world record. Amazing accomplishment and good luck to anyone wanting to break this record.
Kimmo Lahtinen was at the scene and took some very nice pictures, which you can view here.
Herbert Nitsch (Austria) broke the Free Immersion record by diving to 120 meters. That’s 4 meters deeper then the previous record which was set a few day ago by William Trubridge. Great competition going on between these athletes and an amazing dive by Herbert! It took him 4:28 minutes of pulling down and up the line. Can you imagine holding your breath for 4,5 minutes? And then you have to equalize and pull yourself down and up? There will be a time that you have to do 5 minutes of active diving to break these kind of records!
Lot of people didn’t start today. William Winram who announced a world record attempt didn’t start either due to equalization problems. Ryuzo set a new Japanese free immersion record with a freedive to 104 meters. Eric Fattah lost his noseclip at the start and aborted the dive. William Trubridge couldn’t complete the surface protocol after his dive and Dave Mullins didn’t reached his announced depth.
Besides the day to day competition there is also an overall ranking going on during this competition; The Suunto Dive-Off. Results are based on percentages of the world record and the person who has the highest percentage in all three disciplines combined will be crowned as the best all-round freediver. William Trubridge is currently ranked number 1, but Herbert has ‘only’ to do a 91% constant no fins dive , which is 84 meters and he will be standing at the top. So with two days to go, it will be interesting to see what Herbert will do and if he wants the crown!
And to complete the post, below is the video of competition day 4 to 6. Some great images and footage to be seen, so go and watch it!
Amazing day once again! Biggest news is for sure the two new world records today during the Vertical Blue competition in the Bahamas. Herbert Nitsch from Austria took back the freediving world record in the discipline constant weight. He did this by diving with his monofin to 124 meters depth in 4:10 minutes. William Trubridge from New Zealand broke Nitsch his 3 day old world record in the discipline Free Immersion by diving tot 116 meters, two meters deeper then the previous record. The dive took him 4:09 minutes.
Besides the two world records there were also two new national records set. Misuzu Hirai took the Japanese women’s constant weight record by diving to 73 meters in 2:20 minutes. William Winram took the Canadian national record in the discipline free immersion by diving to 96 meters in 3:27 minutes. Dave Mullins didn’t achieve his depth of 118 meters but managed to get close with a dive to 110 meters. Congrats to all and yet another amazing day!
Freediver William Trubridge has just set a new world record in the discipline constant weight without fins. He did a freedive to a depth of 92 meters in a time of 3:45 minutes during the Vertical Blue event that takes place in the Bahamas.
Everybody else was successful with his dives, except Carla Sue Hanson (SP), Misuzu Hirai (touch) and William Winram (pulling).
More info soon!
To be fair, I waited one more day to publish this news. Yesterday afternoon news came out that Stig Severinsen from Denmark set a new O2 static world record by holding is breath for 20 minutes and 10 seconds. I guess it’s just not a good day to do something like that on April fools day and doing a time that is similar to the year we live in.
But now that the record is confirmed on April 2nd I thought it was time to announce it to the world. Stig did his record at the Kattegat Centre in Grenaa, Denmark. 4 AIDA judges were present and a notary from the Guinness Book of World Records.
Before he started his breath hold, Stig took 12 minutes of pure oxygen before the dive. Everything went pretty easy, just after 15 minutes were his contractions started. He managed to end it with an amazing time of 20:10 minutes.
In the press release they claim that it is the first ever O2 breath hold over 20 minutes, but that is not exactly correct. Several other people already went over this limit, including David Blaine who did a 20:03 minute O2 breath hold in May 2008 during his trainings before the Oprah Winfrey show where he did 17:04.
To be honest I think these kind of records are crap. Just a circus act that brings media attention. This is sports on steroids, but nobody seems to get that. Yes, of course you can hold your breath longer when you prepare with pure oxygen.
For sure this will go wrong in the near future with some people who will do this in a wrong way. And I just don’t like to call this freediving. Bravo to the people who can earn their money with it and get the media attention from it, but in the end this is not a real athletic performance.
The thing is that Stig has already proven himself to be an exceptional freediver, who I greatly admire. And in the end I think that even Stig himself is more proud about his world championship gold medals then this Guinness record.
Too bad the crowd and media doesn’t see the difference when somebody does a 9 minute static during a regular freediving competition or a 20 minute static on pure oxygen. It’s all about the numbers.
Below a nice short video from Stig his record and more info on Stig his new website: www.Breatheology.com
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