Another world record for William Trubridge and a recap of the 2016 Vertical Blue competition

At the conclusion of one of the most popular and iconic freediving events, Vertical Blue 2016, the sport’s legend and multi-champion William Trubridge reached his 17th world record by reaching a depth of 124 metres in the Free Immersion competition. It was a very strong and almost perfect touch to end the whole event, which was full of world, national records and personal bests for individual athletes.

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The competition took place over 9 days in the beautiful and majestic Deans Blue Hole in the Bahamas – the deepest so-called sea well in the world. The competitors, apart from the beauty of the surrounding nature and wonderful weather, had at their disposal a competition field 202 metres deep. The location was not chosen by chance, as the originator and organiser of the competition is the aforementioned William Trubridge, who also lives and trains in the Bahamas.

During this year’s edition of Vertical Blue, 35 competitors joined the competition. 18 women and 15 men performed a total of 189 immersions, during which 3 world records and 34 national records were broken. The highlight was Trubridge setting the world record in Free Immersion with 122 metres. As the New Zealander was not completely satisfied with his attempt, during which he had some problems with the marker, he decided to make another attempt a day later. This time, descending to 124 metres, he set another, already seventeenth, world record in his collection.

“Today I decided to make one more attempt at the record in Free Immeresion. On my last attempt I felt that if I had avoided the marker problems I could have added another metre or two to the score. As a result, I managed a very efficient dive to 124 metres, which closed in a time of 4 minutes and 54 seconds. This time I had full control of the dive and, as a result, the ascent went off without a hitch.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported me! To my friends, family and the whole team! And also to all of you who cheered me warmly!” – wrote William Trubridge on his Facebook.

Japanese Sayuri Kinoshita also set her own world record. On 26 April, during a trial in the CNF competition – constant weight without fins, she descended to the depth of 72 metres in 3 minutes and 4 seconds, bettering the achievement of the tsarina of freediving – Russian Natalia Molchanovey. With that, Kinoshita became the first representative of the cherry blossom country to hold a freediving world record.

It looked like it was going to happen right from the start. The Japanese woman reached a depth of 68 metres on the very first day of the competition, setting a new record for her country and giving a clear signal that she will take on the world record later in the competition.

Source: deeperblue.com