Take a Deep Breath

What do teachers do over the summer holidays? For one St Bede’s Teacher, Mr Dave King, the answer was to break his own UK Freediving record.

This was his 6th UK freediving record. He has held the breath hold record (static apnoea) of six minutes 58 seconds, and currently holds the distance swimming record (dynamic apnoea) of 217m as well as the depth record for swimming down and back on one breath (constant weight with fins).

The record that he set at the beginning of the summer was in constant weight. He was the previous holder of this record set at the World Championships in Egypt 2 years ago in September, but has not managed to make competitions recently , and therefore thought it was time to try and break his record of -80metres. Diving in the Red sea at the Egyptian resort of Dahab, he managed to extend the depth to -91m on his fifth day of deep diving despite struggling to overcome sinus problems brought on by hay fever.

The day before the record attempt he managed an easy 85metres and so thought he should try and break the 90 metre barrier. It was his PB by 6 metres and with a day or two more he is confident he could have broken the 100 metre mark and become the 14th diver in the world to do so. That will have to wait.

Mr King said “The dive took two minutes and 32 seconds, it was fun, I felt relaxed and still had some air left to equalise my ears at the bottom, telling me that I could go deeper. I am now focusing on new disciplines of diving and looking forward to attending World Championships in 2011”.

To watch a BBC TV interview with Mr King go to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo57zu_C1Ug