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Considered an extreme sport, free diving relies solely on the diver’s ability to hold his or her breath rather than using a breathing apparatus such as a scuba gear. The sport is growing in popularity these days. Unknown to some, free diving has existed for hundreds of years that “Homer and Plato [even] wrote about it,” reports 60 Minutes .
For those who chose to take up the extreme sport, the beauty of free diving lies on conquering “death-defying feats” never thought possible. As Alexander Davies of Discovery News pointed out, “Divers push the limits of human evolution by descending hundreds of meters below the surface, fighting massive levels of water pressure and minutes without oxygen.”
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The 50-meter mark was first breached in 1962 by Enzo Maiorca. Fourteen years later, Maiorca’s fiercest rival, Jacques Mayol, hit 100 meters. And as the sport developed, divers started incorporating fins, weights, inflatable balloons, and diving sleds, going even deeper. According to the International Association for the Development of Apnea (AIDA), an organization established in 1992 to set global standards and verify free diving records, the deepest dive record set was 273 meters by Goran Colak in 2011.
A lot of people may ask, “Why go down at all knowing how extreme the sport is?” For some enthusiasts though, they do not see free diving as an extreme sport – they see it as a adventure. As champion free diver Tanya Streeter explained to 60 Minutes’ Bob Simon, “It is journey of self-exploration.”
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Phil Newsum believes that safety should always be a priority in diving, whether free, or commercial. Select updates about the diving industry are available at this Facebook page.
