German and Italian freedivers have broken the world record for the No Limits Tandem discipline.
The record was broken on December 31st, 2020 off Sharm El-Sheik in Egypt.
In the NLT Tandem discipline — which is a freediving record certifying agencies such as AIDA do not recognize as a formal discipline — the freedivers hold on to a sled and go down together. Reaching the depth they stop, fill a balloon with air, and are pulled up by the balloon. At around the 30-meter mark, they detach their lanyards and go to the surface on their own.
Daniel Roettgermann from Germany and Tito Zappalà from Italy dove via sled to 130 meters (427 feet) under the supervision of an AIDA judge. They spent 1 minute below 100 meters and finished with a white card after a 3:05-minute dive time.
Roettgermann said of the dive:
“The tandem record was challenging for me because preparation, start, and speed had to be suitable for both of us. Everything needed to be well aligned. Also, I was used to focus[ing] on myself during diving, and paying attention to your buddy is also a little distracting. But Tito is a great athlete and friend and was always supporting me. While he is in the water every day and going down easily — I call him ’a machine’ due to his incredible fitness level — I had to prepare a little more.”
Zappalà said:
“With this record, we also smashed my personal best with the depth of -130 meters. We didn’t have much time to train together but felt ready after two training sessions to -90 and -120 meters. We had a lot of fun. Actually, this is my record because being half the size of ‘bambino,’ I dove double the distance.”
The former world record of 126 meters (413 feet) by Stavros Kastrinakis and Andrea Zuccari was set in January 2013.
