Freediving (free, free, diving – diving)

Diving with a held breath. During immersion, the diver does not use scuba diving, which is why freediving is often incorrectly referred to as scuba diving. This is not entirely true, because freedivers use equipment such as masks / glasses, special fins, foam / skin skins, ballast, etc.

There are reasons to believe that diving with a stopped breath is as old as humanity itself. Worldwide, along the sea coast, archaeologists have discovered numerous shellfish shells, or mounds made from shells of mussels consumed by prehistoric people, dated to 140,000 years. The oldest (dated around 5500 BC) pearl indicating underwater human activity was discovered in the south-eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula. Pervelławy occur at a depth of at least a few meters, so it is unlikely that pearls could be obtained in a way that does not require submersion.

Historical sources prove that in Greece, India, Persia and Japan, diving with a stopped breath was widely practiced already in the 5th-3rd century BC. in order to obtain seafood, sponges and pearls. It was also used in warfare, as exemplified by the removal by the Athenians of underwater dams at the entrance to the port during the siege of Syracuse in 415 BC. Divers were also used to cut the anchor ropes of ships during the siege of Tire by the army of Alexander the Great in 333 BC.

The history of sports freediving began in 1949 when Raimondo Bucher set the first official record of diving depth with stopped breath (30m). In 1961, Enzo Maiorca reached 50m. Fifteen years later, Jacques Mayol dived to a depth of 100m. The 150m barrier was defeated in 1999 by Umberto Pelizzari. The history of the depth records is closed by Herbert Nitsch, who in 2007 reached 214m. The first freediving world championships were organized in 1996 under the aida of AIDA.