Although competitions and dives involving safety teams are inherently less risky, tragedy still strikes.
In 2015, 53-year-old Natalia Molchanova of Russia, once hailed as the world’s best freediver, disappeared while teaching a private lesson in waters off Formentera in Spain; she was never seen again (Her son is a world-champion diver still competing).
In 2013, 32-year-old Nicholas Mevoli of Brooklyn, New York, died while competing at Vertical Blue. He had dived 68 meters down, paused and went another 4 meters down before turning back and losing consciousness just after resurfacing, according to The New York Times .
Athletes and safety team members say the sport has gotten safer.
At Vertical Blue, for instance, Baker has the authority to pull an athlete who faces a heightened risk of death, like if they’ve recently had multiple blackouts.
The first day of this year’s competition, 11 of the 37 athletes participating had a lung squeeze or a blackout, she said, adding that everyone was ultimately OK. While that high of a number is unusual, she said, the first day of competition often sees the most injuries.
“It was a bit of carnage,” she said. “The athletes like to make a show on the first day, get a world record, pump their muscles a little bit. Like, ‘Watch out, world, here I am.”
Doping scandal
In addition to fighting its reputation for danger, freediving is also facing challenges involving athletes using banned substances.
In early July just before Vertical Blue, three Croatian athletes were banned from the event and future Vertical Blue competitions after organizers found four performance-enhancing drugs in their luggage, the organization announced on its YouTube page.
The competition adheres to World Anti-Doping Agency standards, and the athletes had signed an agreement saying they would follow all doping policies and procedures, organizers said.
William Trubridge, a world-record-holding New Zealand freediver and one of the sport’s most vocal ambassadors, wrote in 2021 that doping was creeping into their world.
“Anyone who looks for quick shortcuts towards some fancied grail may gain short-term acclaim, perhaps an additional sponsor or two, but the subterfuge and pretense would likely haunt their days,” he said. “Doping is a cancer, that once it takes hold in any sport is very difficult to displace. Let’s not let that happen to our beautiful practice of freediving.”
Drugs that could help freedivers include beta blockers, which slow the heart rate and therefore decreases the body’s demand for oxygen, Baker said, adding that such tricks put athletes at more risk.
“Not only does it put the diver in danger but when the diver has a situation way down deep and those safety divers have to go pick them up and bring them up, four or five people are working hard and they can they can squeeze or they can black out,” she said. “It can just really go bad very quickly.”
Olympic dreams
Although there are challenges, the sport is gaining momentum and interest.
Bourke said she hopes that momentum continues. And who knows, maybe one day she can call herself an Olympian.
“It is kind of a crazy sport … but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time,” she said.
