The Tribune

THE world’s top freedivers have gathered in the Bahamas for one of the world’s largest freediving competitions, the Suunto Vertical Blue.

Organised by the record-breaking freediver and Suunto ambassador William Trubridge, the nine-day competition began on November 20 at Dean’s Blue Hole, Long Island.

Plunging to a depth of 203m (666ft), it is the world’s deepest blue hole of its kind — a place that is awe-inspiring to view and the perfect freediving venue.

Fifty-six athletes from 21 countries are taking part, including Trubridge, Guillaume Nery and Alexey Mochanov.

Between them, they hold the current world records in the sport’s main depth disciplines and will seek to dive to depths in excess of 125m (400ft) on just a single breath of air.

Organisers say the 2012 Suunto Vertical Blue promises to be an incredible window into the physiological demands of elite freediving, as athletes explore the ocean’s depths, the last frontier of human possibility.

William Trubridge said: “What makes Vertical Blue a special event is that it gives the athletes free reign to mine their aquatic potential.

“The competitors are like chemists in a spotless laboratory — free to conduct controlled experiments on what their body can tolerate in an airless world.

“If you left your diamonds in the basement of a 40-story skyscraper that flooded up to its roof then these guys could freedive down the lift shaft and collect them for you.

“The deepest dives will last in excess of four minutes, but that’s not four minutes of holding your breath in your bathtub — it’s four minutes of propelling yourself through the water column, while combatting pressures that would crush a soccer ball to the size of a tennis ball and which exert mind-numbing narcosis on neural circuitry.

“It’s four-minutes that takes place in another dimension, where time is drawn out into an eternity — an eternity that lasts but a single breath.”

Suunto, the world’s leading dive computer brand, is the official depth gauge used at all AIDA World Record freedive attempts.

Mika Holappa, Dive Business Unit director at Suunto, said: “Suunto has worked with William Trubridge for many years and he’s an outstanding athlete. We are very proud to be this year’s headline sponsor of the Suunto Vertical Blue.”