Free diving is one of the most extreme sports in the world. It’s a form of diving that doesn’t require any breathing equipment, but instead, a single breath of air. Divers train to hold their breath for up to, and sometimes longer than, 4 minutes to reach depths as far as 400 feet.
Breath-holding comes with limitations and dangers of its own if not practiced properly. Divers can experience blackouts, loss of motor function and even death. In addition to the physicality of the sport, mental toughness is also required to achieve such depths. While some divers simply wish to experience the underwater world without the bulky equipment required in scuba diving, others train in a more competitive manner for years in order to push themselves to their limits to achieve world records in depth.
Vertical Blue, founded by 18-time world record-holding free diver William Trubridge, is the biggest free diving competition in the world, in which divers from different countries come to beat their individual records as well as world records. The competition is held every year in the Bahamas at Dean’s Blue Hole, a 663 feet sinkhole with no current.
The event didn’t happen in 2020 but returned on July 13, 2021, for 10 days of competitions, during which these top 25 free divers in the world set new records, both nationally and internationally.
