Individual AIDA Freediving Pool World Championships 2018 Results

Some say that freediving, and especially its pool disciplines, is not much of a spectator sport - there’s little “action” and the results are often predictable. However, this year’s Individual AIDA Freediving Pool World Championships was nothing short of spectacular. Held in Belgrade, Serbia from June 23rd to July 1st, the event had it all - suspense, drama and quite a few memorable performances.

During the first three days of the Championships 114 athletes from countries around the world fought in the qualifying heats for a chance to progress to the next stage of the competition. This year, there were 12 male and 12 female spots in A and B finals in each one of the three disciplines - Static (STA), Dynamic (DYN) and Dynamic No-Fins (DNF).

Dynamic No-Fins (DNF) Final Results

The finals kicked off with the Dynamic No-Fins (DNF), where the Polish team has once again demonstrated that they are the true masters of the pool disciplines. Three out of six podium places went to Polish athletes - Magdalena Solich-Talanda won a Gold Medal with a 178 m performance, Mateusz Malina for the third time in a row defended the Gold with a 226 m performance, and Julia Kozerska scored Silver with a 173 m performance.

The rest of the podium places went to Alexander Bubenchikov (Ukraine) - Silver, Mirela Kardasevic (Croatia) and Vitomir Maricic (Croatia) - Bronze.

In addition to that, there were three National Records set by Tijana Nikolic (Serbia) at 140 m, Alexander Bubenchikov (Ukraine) at 217 m and Giannis Kothonidis (Greece) at 204 m.

You can check out the official results below.

You can also watch the full live stream of the event.

Dynamic (DYN) Final Results

The second day of the finals turned out to be quite dramatic for a few reasons.

Three of the six very strong athletes competing in the Men’s A Finals ended up with red cards, which was a complete surprise for everybody watching. Furthermore, Mateusz Malina, a current World Record holder in DYN (300 m) and one of the only two men, who were doing all three events in the Finals, pulled up early at 203 m.

As a result, the medals went to Alexander Bubenchikov (Ukraine) - Gold with a 289 m performance, Petar Klovar (Croatia) - Silver (212 m) and Mateusz Malina (Poland) - Bronze.

Women’s A Finals, on the other hand, surprised us with a new World Record. Magdalena Solich-Talanda from Poland has smashed the previous record of 237 m held by the late Natalia Molchanova, and with an amazing, perfectly controlled performance set a new record at 243 m.

Another athlete from Poland, Julia Kozerska won Silver with 233 m performance, and Bronze went to Mirela Kardasevic (Croatia) with 230 m result.

The official results form the DYN Finals are below.

You can watch the full live stream of the event here.

Static (STA) Final Results

Last but not least, the athletes competed in Static breath hold. This Final proved to be a more open field of competitors after the Polish and Croatian teams dominated the Dynamic and Dynamic No-Fins Finals.

Gold Medals went to Veronika Dittes (Austria) with an 8min 7sec performance for the Women’s Gold and Goran Colak (Croatia) with a 9min 45sec performance for the Men’s Gold.

Other Podium places were also there with Silver for Yuriko Ichihara (Japan) and Peter Durdik (Slovakia), and Bronze for Anna-Marie Christiansen (Denmark) and Mateusz Malina (Poland).

Yuriko Ichihara’s (Japan) performance was also a National Record.

Here are the tables with the official results for STA Finals.