Free Diving Depth Competitions in the Dock?

In Undercurrent's mid-September email, we noted that competitive freediving to great depths is a strange sport, in that divers see how close to death they can get while still surviving. In early September, Russian free-diver Andrey Matveenko brought the message home to participants in the 2025 CMAS freediving competition in Lefkada, Greece, when he suffered a medical emergency. During official training, Matveenko attempted a freedive to a depth of 415 feet. When he ascended, he blacked out just meters from the surface. After being rescued, he presented with neurological symptoms, including paralysis on the right side of his body.

Two new videos from Croatian participants, Vitomir Maricic and Petar Klovar, have reignited the debate over safety in competitive freediving. They posted a compilation video of events that show the brutal effect of deep breath-hold diving on the human body, noting that accidents occur in every high-performance sport.

The magazine France Apnée shared the original video, sparking a strong discussion among its readers, and later acknowledged the sensitivity of revealing, in images, the details of such accidents.

Some who believe deep breath-hold diving competitions are safe have pushed back. Estrella Navarro, a marine biologist, model, and national record-holding free diver from Mexico, wrote in a post that "freediving is a controlled risk sport, not a high-risk one. If rules are properly followed, it is safe. The first rule, of course, is to have proper safety divers." Swimmers Daily

At the end of September, the AIDA World Championship was underway in Limassol, Cyprus, attempting to put freediving competition back on the world stage. However, it's not really a spectator sport unless you enjoy seeing the competitors having medical emergencies. It's not a pretty sight, but you can see the video compilation here. https://tinyurl.com/4fzuwt3u

P.S.: A highly influential figure in freediving was the late Natalia Molchanova, one of the greatest free divers in history. She held 42 world records and earned 22 world championship medals. While giving freediving lessons in 2015 in the Spanish Balearic Islands, she went missing and was never found.