after jumping off skyscrapers with parachutes is considered to be modern free diving, according to Alec Wilkinson's "The Deepest Dive" in this week's New Yorker magazine. "Modern free diving is a sport in which divers, on a single breath, descend hundreds of feet, into cold and darkness, and often pass out before they return....There are eight disciplines, three of which are conducted in a pool; the rest are called deep dives," Wilkinson writes.
Women's records: holding your breath under water Natalia Mochanova at 8:00 minutes
Sara Campbell holds the record for constant weight--divers must return to the surface with the weight he or she used to descend--96 meters, which took three minutes and thirty-four seconds. The men's record is 122 metres.
Who does well in this extreme sport? Well, after reading the article last night, I conclude that those who have set the records have remarkable physical talent-for instance, Sara Campbell does not feel the blood withdraw from her hands and feet, as many divers do on their way down. She feels no urge to breathe at depth, either, which is unusual. They also have great power of concentration. The most fatal danger is blacking out underwater--which happens to most of the long-distance free divers.
~Karol's comments
Read the abstract at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/24/090824fa_fact_wilkinson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozzNSn_5QS0 to see the video of Campbell's 96 metre dive.
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