Six world records for horizontal breath-hold diving tumbled in Greece last week – and five of them were set by two male and female freedivers from Poland.
Mateusz Malina set three of these new records, two of which were absolute (that is, judged under both CMAS and AIDA rules), at the 2025 CMAS World Championship Freediving Indoor competition, held at the Olympic Aquatic Centre in Athens.
Also read: Champagne master dies freediving
Some 200 freedivers from 40 countries competed at the event, in which divers are grouped into age categories – Juniors (15-17), Seniors (18-49) and Masters (50-70+) – to compete in heats for tournament medals. The event also provides an annual record-setting opportunity, and rapid reporting of the results was provided by the freediving site Molchanovs.
On 21 May, Malina succeeded in swimming 300m on one breath in the Dynamic With Bifins (DYNB) discipline.
Swimming six lengths of an Olympic-sized pool under water in this way had only ever been achieved using a monofin before (Malina did this first in 2016). Lengths of 50m make it more difficult to cover long distances than in a standard 25m pool, because there are fewer wall push-offs to provide extra propulsion and longer swims between turns, according to Molchanovs.
Malina decided to take it slow and easy, and his 4min 53sec dive overtook the previous AIDA bifins record of 290m that he had set in 2022.
The achievement was the more remarkable because only the previous day Malina had set a new CMAS world record in Dynamic No Fins (DNF) by covering 239.5m. The athlete has dominated this discipline since 2014, when he hit the 226m mark and became absolute world record-holder.
The new CMAS record was 1.5m longer than the one Malina set last year, but he also still holds the absolute world record of 250m from 2022.
Then yesterday, on the last day of the competition (24 May), Malina rounded off his week by setting a new absolute world record in Dynamic With Fins (DYN), using a monofin to cover 326.5m in 4min 31sec.
This beat by 5m his own previous world record set at the equivalent event in 2022, and leaves the Pole as absolute world record-holder in all three dynamic apnea disciplines: DNF, DYNB and DYN.
Honours even
Meanwhile breakthroughs had also been occurring among the female competitors in Athens.
Also on the last day of the championship, two of these freedivers succeeded in setting the same new 284m absolute world record in DYN at once.
For Poland’s Julia Kozerska it was her second world record set at the event, while the other diver, Mirela Kardasevic from Croatia, was defending her existing record, which the two bettered by 2m.
Kardasevic’s dive took 4min 1sec while the Pole, entering the water later, was able to complete the distance she knew was required in a leisurely 5min 13sec.
Kozerska had already set a new absolute world record of 214m in the DNF discipline on day one. This had broken her previous CMAS 211.5m world record from last year and her AIDA 213m record from 2023.
A sixth world record was set in Athens in the Static Apnea (STA) event on day 3 by 54-year-old German competitor Heike Schwerdtner. She had already set a new absolute record of 9min 22sec earlier this year under AIDA rules, and in Athens was content to draw the line at 9min 9sec, enough to set a new CMAS world record.
The men’s absolute STA record has stood for 16 years now – Frenchman Stéphane Mifsud held his breath under water for 11min 35sec in 2009 under AIDA rules.
Also on Divernet: World dynamic apnea records set in Serbia, Freediver Heike is queen of static in Kaunas, Freediver claims world record for 112m walk, Dynamic Apnea: New CMAS world record + RAID course
