Alexey Molchanov is pretty okay with diving down to where the lights go out. Photo: YouTube//Screenshot
Alexey Molchanov is pretty good at swimming. Swimming down to incredible depths, to be exact. And at the 35th AIDA Freediving World Championship on September 26, he made sure everyone knew it by setting his 40th world record, diving to a depth of 413 feet.
The event took place in Limassol, Cyprus. Molchanov, who was eerily calm during his dive, matches the world world record that French athlete Arnaud Jerald set earlier this year.
The video, which is shot in real time, takes a a little over six minutes. Once Molchanov reaches about 150 feet, he almost completely stops kicking, which is standard practice for freediving. When you reach a certain depth, the air in the lungs is compressed by the water pressure, and air volume is what makes us buoyant. When you’re trying to get down as deep as possible and still have the lungs to get to the surface, kicking is an unnecessary energy expenditure.
Molchanov is a wildly accomplished freediver. Born in Volgograd, Russia in 1987, he won his first gold medal for free diving in Kalamata, Greece in 2013. Since then, he’s pretty much won everything there is to win, and it doesn’t look like he plans on stopping any time soon.
