Polish freediver Stanislaw Odbiezalek this past weekend set a new under-ice swim world record using a monofin and only wearing a Speedo.
Odbiezalek swam for 105m/344ft before coming up for air in a frozen lake in Norway.
Odbiezalek was inspired to do the attempt by South Africa’s Amber Fillary, who set an under-ice no fins in a bikini world record in 2020, and planned to set two new records the same weekend as well.
Fillary, however, swam for 110m/361ft in her first no-fins attempt but suffered a blackout on her way up.
“Unfortunately it didn’t go well,” she said in an Instagram post, and attributed the failure to a bad infection in her knee. “I think that had a role to play in what happened.” Because of the blackout, she wasn’t able to do her second record attempt.
In a follow-up IG video post, Fillary was frank about how she was feeling.
“I suffer badly from depression and I’m a recovering addict so this is a really scary time for me. It’s difficult being in recovery at the moment. I’m kind of struggling.”
Nevertheless, Fillary said she was determined to come back next year to retry the attempts.
(Featured image credit: Fredrik Bournac)
