This year, 5 French athletes participated in the CMAS-FFESSM open water freediving world championships held from August 6 to 11 on the island of Roatan in Honduras: Alice Modolo, Mireille Neff, Alouach Abdelatif, Thomas Bouchard, and Eddy Laffin.
It was the first time that these CMAS open water freediving world championships were held outside of Europe: they were previously held in Italy in 2015 (Ischia) and in Turkey at Kaş in 2016 and 2018.
The results of the French freedivers
On the French side, after winning three bronze medals at the Caribbean Cup (-102 meters FIM for Abdelatif Alouach, -71 meters FIM for Mireille Neff, and -76 meters CNF for Thomas Bouchard), the French team ranks fifth overall (out of 29 nations) behind Russia, Italy, Slovenia, and Ukraine.
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Mireille Neff during the CMAS world freediving championships in Roatan. © DR Abdelatif Alouach (photo at the top of the page) comes back with 2 silver medals (-82 meters in no fins, new French record, and -103 meters in constant weight bi-fins, also a new French record).
- Thomas Bouchard is bronze medalist in no fins with -80 meters.
- In free immersion, Mireille Neff brings back a French record by reaching a depth of -76 meters FIM (free immersion), she takes 4th place in this category.
- Eddy Laffin finishes in 6th place in CNF with a dive to -67 meters.
- In constant weight monofin, Alice Modolo unfortunately did not validate her performance: after retrieving her tag at -100m, she suffered a blackout at the end of her ascent. The champion still returns from the Caribbean with the French record broken twice during the Caribbean Cup (-92 then -95 meters). On her Facebook page, she shares a very moving account: “When you touch your dream but there’s still a little way to go… I grabbed the tag at -100 meters but the dive ended with a blackout. My first blackout… I was so proud to have always managed to spare my body from this shock. Rest assured, the medical and safety teams do an outstanding job. At the first signs of failure, they intervened and assisted me. I recovered immediately. Yes, the risk of blacking out is indeed present and not just for others!…” (read the rest of her account on her Facebook page).
World records
These world championships were marked by several new world records: on the men’s side, it is the invincible Alexey Molchanov who claimed the 4 gold medals, each coupled with a world record:
- Constant weight no fins (CNF): with a descent to -85 meters, he surpasses the -83 meters mark of Croatian Goran Colak at the 2018 world championships.
- Constant weight monofin (CWT): he breaks his own 2018 world record by reaching a depth of -125 meters.
- Constant weight bi-fins (CWT-BF): -110 meters.
- Free immersion (FIM): -118 meters.
On the women’s side, the Italian Alessia Zecchini and the Slovenian Alenka Artnik both succeeded in setting the new world record in constant weight monofin (CWT) with dives of -113 meters each, surpassing the previous world records that had been recorded a few days earlier during the Caribbean Cup (-111 meters for Artnik and -112 meters for Zecchini respectively).
On her side, it is the Ukrainian Nataliia Zharkova who now holds the world record in constant weight bi-fins (CWT-BF) with -93 meters.
We will meet very soon for the AIDA world championships which will take place from September 8 to 14 in the bay of Villefranche-sur-Mer, France!
Here is the program already:
- September 8: CNF women (no fins)
- September 9: CNF men
- September 10: FIM women (free immersion)
- September 11: FIM men
- September 12: CWT women (constant weight – constant weight monofin)
- September 13: CWT men