Tuba Static Challnege 2018 - report

Last Saturday at the Silesian Aquadrome, an extremely interesting freediver competition took place. The first of the main differences was holding one’s breath underwater in time, not on the surface as it usually happens during a classic static dive. Additionally, the freedivers were not allowed to use any equipment other than their swimming trunks and in order to advance to the next round, they had to fight a direct duel – with themselves and their opponents. So you could say that freedivers fought like in the ring – the winner was the one who held his breath longer than his opponent.

Fifteen competitors, including one female, registered for the competition. Among the participants were names of people belonging to the national freediving team as well as those who only recently started their adventure with freediving. The competition was played in a cup system, and the grouping into pairs was decided by drawing lots. So a lot could depend on luck, but there were a few interesting duels, where the predicted favorite passed the test faster than his competitor. The best, who reached the final, fought as many as 4 duels, but the breaks between them were long enough to catch breath. The winner was Karol Karcz and his longest apnea lasted 5 minutes and 28 seconds, which is almost 3 minutes shorter than his record-breaking static breath-holding in the classic version on the surface.

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An account of the event was found on “Superstacja TV”.

The competition was organised for the second time by the Freediving Poland Association and the Aquadrom Diving Academy.

Sponsors of the competition were BANDI and MAVI Digital Instruments.

Photos: Patrycja Radiowska-Polak, Rafał Meszka and Marta Kolasińska