Tuesday, 18 February 2025
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The record attempt was conducted in the waters of Norway’s Lake Oppsjø, and the South African athlete was prepared for the start by freediver Arve Gravningen. With her achievement, Fillary broke the previous 50m record, which had been held since March 2015 year belonged to Finland’s Johanna Nordblad.
The successful attempt made by Amber Fillary was her second attempt at the record. The first took place in Finland in 2019 and ended in failure as the athlete became entangled in a rope stretched between the breaks.
However, the whole project was not about the record itself and proving to the world that you are the best, but about drawing attention to and raising awareness of an extremely important and very often underestimated issue, which is the subject of mental health. It is problems in this area that not only significantly reduce the quality of life of many people, but also lead to extremely drastic steps, such as suicide.
Fillary has suffered from depression and addiction problems in the past, and her failure in Finland also took a heavy emotional toll on her. But with the principle that nothing should stand in the way of happiness and dreams, she picked herself up and achieved her goal.
“Depression can make any task you undertake overwhelming, but the extremes of freediving have shown me that the human body can endure much more than we imagine and we can achieve anything if we can get beyond our fears and barriers. Even the greatest adversities can be overcome.” – said Fillary
With her feat, Amber wanted to show other people struggling with similar problems that it is worth fighting and that victory is possible.
By the way, it is worth mentioning that the women’s world record in the DNF competition is 191 metres (interestingly, her Polish record is 200 metres) and since 2017 it belongs to the leading Polish athlete Magdalena Solich-Talanda. The difference between the results of the two ladies is obviously significant, which makes it even more evident how great an effort a similar feat is in extremely low temperatures.
It is also worth mentioning that literally moments earlier, A new freediving world record under ice was set by Alexei Molchanov. Russian had covered a distance of 180m, but unlike the South African athlete he was using a monoplane, and the attempt was classified under the DYN – Dynamic Apnea With Fins competition.
Source: iol.co.za
Photo: Alexander Nordahl
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