Shark Freediving

Fred Buyle catching a ride with a female tiger shark - Photo by William Winram

You may know him, know of him, or at the very least, you will have come across his stunning underwater photography. This coming Friday October 9, 2009, do not miss your chance to meet the man who has made breath-taking images his livelihood. Former world record freediving champion Frederic Buyle will be in front of the cameras for a unique documentary produced for Thalassa.

Airing in France every Friday evenings on channel France 3, Thalassa is an award-winning tv magazine created and hosted by Georges Pernoud. The October 9 broadcast will also be a very special occasion since Thalassa will be celebrating its 30-year anniversary. While the piece about Fred Buyle was filmed in the summer of 2008, it was hand-picked along with three others to air on the very evening which will commemorate the magazine’s anniversary, an honour for the underwater photographer.

Thalassa is broadcast in over 90 countries, thanks to channels such as TV5, RFO and Planète Thalassa. The show can also be seen online at http://www.thalassa.france3.fr/.

Fred Buyle is currently filming a documentary about humpback whales in Rurutu, French Polynesia, accompanied by fellow champion freediver William Winram.

Last week I wrote about Nicola Putignano and his new World Guinness Record with a static on oxyen of over 19 minutes and that it would be aired later on. Well, it has aired and it appears that Nicola did a 19:02 minutes breath hold on oxygen. And of course the video of the attempt is already online on youtube.

Because it’s so long it’s divided in 3 parts. You can skip the second clip because they talk over there to Sophia Loren and sometimes show Nicola in the side. Umberto Pelizzari hosts the attempt and all the talk is in Italian. If someone speaks Italian: if they say anything interesting let us know in the comments. Anyway, enjoy the loooong static!

Freediver Patrick Musimu from Begium is training for his next project. Currenty he’s in Nice with the CIPA team, training for his 220 meter no limits dive he wants to do this year.

It’s been almost 4 years since his dive to 209 meters (June 30, 2005). During that dive no AIDA judges were present, so he will probably have the same strategy as Stephane Mifsud.

Below a small video in French about his training. Of course when I have more info I’ll post it here. Good luck to Patrick!

Few weeks back Sara Campbell had a BBC appearance and now once again she has been broad casted through the BBC. What’s she doing to get all this TV coverage? Oh yes, doing some pretty serious freediving and progressing like crazy! All in all, it’s a pretty good piece, the video that is, and you can watch it below.

http://www.shark-eye.com/flv/freediving/20070807-bbc-sara.flv

It has been somewhat quiet over the last months about Tom Sietas from Germany, but once again he’s back in the news. The new website of Tom shows some of the stuff coming up in the next couple of months and his recent project was breaking his own 14:25 Guinness world record in holding his breath with the use of oxygen.

A few days ago on August 9th, he managed to do 15:02 during the famous US Regis and Kelly show. He’s for sure making good use of the publicity around this somewhat dark horse discipline in the freediving world. Below is the attempt on video. Watch and tell me what you think! Is this still freediving?

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Personally I watch Discovery Channel a lot (too much according to my wife, but that’s another story). And between the hourly documentaries are sometimes small mini docs which are only 2-3 minutes long about some nice-to-know things. Lot of mini’s about flying come by, or about some strange almost extinct languages, but there is a freediving mini going around on the Discovery channel I have never seen. It’s already out for 6 months, but maybe they don’t broadcast them here on the Dutch Discovery channel. Anyway you can watch a small 90 second filler here by yourself. Read further to watch the clip.

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For the first time ever, a freediving photo has won the 1st prize in the sports features category from the famous World Press Photo Awards. The photographer is Franck Sequin from Deadline Photo Press in France. The photo potraits freediving world champion Guillaume Néry. Of course this is very good news for freediving in general, but to be honest… I’ve seen better freediving photo’s.

Martin Stepanek got the Adventurer of the Year award from extreme sports magazine South Florida Adventures. It seems that the magazine is a local Florida magazine, but still it’s alway great to get such an exposure for freediving.

Christian Redl did a world record in Mexico on September 17th. He did a dynamic with fins freedive into a cave which is 130 meters long with no exit possibility. Sounds scary, but he survived. Look here for some more information.

Sometimes it’s worth mentioning a nice article. This time an article appeared in the international herald tribune about Umberto Pelizzari and his Apnea Academy philosophy. Liz Alderman wrote the artilce. Have fun reading. For archiving purposes I’ve put a copy below.

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