British freediver Rebecca Coales this past weekend broke her fifth national dynamic apnea record, swimming 186 meters with a monofin at a competition in Manchester, England.
Coales extended her previous record by seven meters during her three-minute swim at Grand Central pool operated by Life Leisure and was monitored by AIDA judges.
Coales, trained by Steve Millard of the freedivers.co.uk group, said:
“As always Steve’s competition ran very smoothly and I had nothing to worry about apart from my dive. Safety, judging and organisation was very slick. I had a warm-up dive in Berlin two weeks before this one and that gave me more confidence in extending my personal best. It was also a chance to try my new Aqua Lung Freedive suit, which has performed well in both competitions, and looks really stylish.”
Aquasphere UK provided Coales with a suit, goggles and training aids.
Coales said she is looking forward to competing at the AIDA pool World Championships in Belgrade next year.
This past weekend’s competition featured three disciplines: Dynamic apnea with fins (DYN), Dynamic no fins (DNF) and Static apnea (STA). Following Coales in overall second place in the women’s group was Beci Ryan with a 163-meter DYN swim, and Scottish number one no-fins diver Katey McPherson came in third overall with a 107-meter DNF swim.
For the men, Adam Drzazga won overall with a 136-meter dynamic swim; Lorenzo Baldecchi claimed second place with a a 05:07 static breath-hold and Hungarian freediving champion Mike Benke claimed third. Irishman Eoin Clarke broke a national DNF record with a 104-meter swim.
