Day 2 of the Vertical Blue 2022 freediving competition at Dean’s Blue Hole in the Bahamas saw six new national records set, while several other athletes came up short. We also saw a new AIDA World Record set by France’s Alice Modolo.
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On the women’s side, South Korea’s Jung A Kim set a new Free Immersion (FIM) national record with an 89m/292ft dive, while Belgium’s Marine Simonis dove to 56m/184ft in the Constant Weight No Fins (CNF) discipline.
The men’s side saw four new national records: Taiwan’s Yun-Chieh Ku dove to 106m/348ft in the FIM discipline for a continental record as well, while Colombia’s John Munoz completed an 89m/292ft FIM dive. Mexico’s Pepe Salcedo dove to 105m/344ft in the Constant Weight with Monofin (CWT) discipline, and Peru’s Juan Valdivia completed a 65m/213ft Constant Weight with Bifins (CWTB) dive.
We saw a Women’s Constant Weight Bi-Fins (CWTB) World Record fall yesterday with Alice Modolo (France) diving to 96m, which furthered the record by 2m.
Like Arnaud Jerald yesterday, the official results do not show it as a World Record as it is not an absolute depth record, with the CMAS record being deeper.
It wasn’t smooth sailing for everyone vying for a national record, though.
For the women, Spain’s Isabel Sanchez-Aran attempted a 54m/177ft CNF dive but drew a red card for pulling. Hungary’s Fatima Korok was gunning for a 99m/325ft FIM record but only managed to get to 93m/305ft, the USA’s Enchante Gallardo — who the day before set a new US CWTB national record — tried a 90m/295ft FIM dive but was only able to get to 77m/253ft, and Japan’s Junko Kitahama sought to do a 56m/184ft CWT dive but only managed 40m/131ft.
A post shared by Fatima Korok (@fatimakorok.freediver)
In an Instagram post, Korok wrote:
“Unfortunately, today’s dive was unsuccessful… The target was 99 meters, a few meters before, I turned at 93 meters, because of which I admit, I am very sad. At the beginning of the dive, I messed up the equalization technique, which made me uncomfortable to turn around, I could not equalize the pressure in my ears and of course I did not want to force it because it could have caused a major accident, for example, my eardrum burst. This is also racing and a part of life. Sometimes you didn’t succeed the first or the second time, even the hundredth time, but you shouldn’t give up on what you really want to achieve. It has rarely happened to me that I had to turn around because of the equation, but now I am in depths where tiny mistakes can be measured in meters. This is a new obstacle for me, a challenge, I only learned from this. Man, it’s too far! I know I can do it. Now I rest and then I will try again. Thanks for the support and help everyone. It means a lot that you are by my side even from afar.”
A post shared by USA Freediving (@usafreediving)
On the men’s side, Taiwan’s Mingchun Huang attempted a 100m/328ft CWT dive but only got to 97m/318ft. His countryman Michael Zhi-Da Ko also came up short; his CWTB record attempt of 93m/305ft fell short at 90m/295ft.
Check out the full results from Vertical Blue Day 2 below:
The start list for Day 3 has an equally impressive slate, with another 8 National Record attempts and 3 Continental Records looking to be set!
You can check out our gallery of photos courtesy of Daan Verhoeven below.
If you want to find out the highlights and details from every day of the competition, then check back with DeeperBlue.com as our team provides daily updates and wrap up’s throughout the competition. You should also keep an eye out on our socials for highlights from the competition.
We’ve covered every year of the competition since 2008, so you can check out this year’s coverage and all previous years in our Vertical Blue archive.
Vertical Blue is always an exciting event to watch, so stay tuned to DeeperBlue.com and our social media feeds for updates, and sign up for the live feed from Diveye on the Vertical Blue website to watch in real-time.
Feature Photo by Daan Verhoeven
— With on-site reporting from Francesca Koe and additional reporting by Stephan Whelan.
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