The United Arab Emirates (UAE) held it’s first official AIDA sanctioned Freediving Competition on 21st March. Held at the British School Al Khuhairat – Abu Dhabi the competition featured Static (STA) and Dynamic (DYN) pool disciplines and had competitors from across the Emirates as well as Finland, Russia and Jordan.
The first ever female UAE Freediving National Record Holder in Static (STA) apnea was announced when Hadeya Hassan Almenhali held her breath for 2min 11sec.
“I knew I could hold my breath for longer than 2 minutes and I think this is a challenging national record” . She continued ” This was a great experience being in an offical competition and I was a bit nervous but next time I am sure I will do even better” said Hadeya.
Other UAE Nationals came close to breaking the mens freediving Static (STA) and Dynamic (DYN) apena records. Rashed Ailan Al-Hamelin managed a 4 minute 42 second breath hold but did not manage to comply with all the AIDA International rules on giving the ‘all clear’ at the end of his breath hold. Ali Al Shehhi managed a clean 3 minutes 17 second hold but it was not enough to break the current UAE National Record set by Ahmed Khoori of just over 4 minutes.
You can find out more about Freediving in the UAE on the UAE Freediving Team FaceBook Page or Website.
