The First Day of the 30th AIDA World Championship

The first competition day of the 30^th AIDA World Championship took place today, June 12, 2023, in Jeju, South Korea.

This event is already a huge success, hosting the largest number of freediving athletes at an AIDA Pool World Championship in AIDA’s history with 146 athletes from 30 countries competing on the first day.

Today’s event was Dynamic Bifins (DYNB), a discipline where the freediver swims underwater while holding their breath for the longest possible distance with the assistance of bifins. It is the newest freediving discipline, added to the line-up in 2018. The current women’s AIDA World Record is held by Magdalena Solich Talanda of Poland with a distance of 243m.

It was a great first day of the four-day competition. The atmosphere in the pool was loud and supportive with many teams bringing many more athletes than in previous years. There were also many new teams competing for the first time.

The opening day continued breaking precedent with many new records broken on the opening day:

Women’s AIDA Continental Records:

• Oceania: 177m - Suzanne Malseed (New Zealand)
• Africa: 232m - Bevin Reynolds (South Africa)
• South America: 175m - Nara Martins Ishikawa (Brazil)
• Asia: 220m - Mai Morimura (Japan)

Men’s AIDA Continental Records:

• Oceania: 236m - Benjamin Eckert (Australia) 

Women’s AIDA National Records:

• Philippines: 167m - Tracy Roxanne

• Czech Republic: 164m - Zuzana Reitingerova

• Sweden: 208m - Paula Johnsson

• Indonesia: 154m - Safir Abadi

• Japan: 220m - Mai Morimura

• Malaysia: 177m - Syafidatul Azua Shafii

• Hong Kong: 156m - Chelsea Mo

• Finland: 172m - Janita Kulkula

• Chinese Taipei: 208m  - Yu Fang Liu

• Germany: 200m - Heike Schwerdtner

• South Korea: 206m - Binna Kang

Men’s AIDA National Records:

• Indonesia: 173m - Ernaldo Sanyoto

• Singapore: 232m - Xingqiang Fu

• United Kingdom: 208m - Adam Drzazga

• Hong Kong: 200m - Lap Hing (Chris) Cheung

• Philippines: 188m - Nico Guzman

• Finland: 202m - Olavi Paananen

• Italy: 206m - Federico Buzzoni

• Spain: 227m - Inaki Santos

   Women’s Podium:

1. Bevin Reynolds (South Africa) -  232m

2. Mai Morimura (Japan) -  220m

3. Julia Kozerska (Poland) - 219m

Men’s Podium:

1. Yi (Zy) Zhang (China) - 267m

2. Mikhail Briantcev (International) -  256m

3. Aleksandr Maksimov (International) - 254m

In total, this was a record-breaking first day for the AIDA’s pool world championships and we are looking forward to more records being broken as the competition continues this week.

The competition replay and upcoming livestreams can be found on the official AIDA YouTube channel.