AIDA | 28th AIDA World Championship

Preview of the World Championship

The freediving marathon continues. The CMAS Freediving Indoor World Championship concluded on June 15th, and on June 20th, the first competition day of the 28th AIDA World Championship begins. Most of the strong athletes moved from the pool in Belgrade to the pool in Burgas, this time to compete according to AIDA rules.

Initially, the Championship was planned for 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the competition was canceled. Burgas will now host the Championship two years later.

The competition will take place at the Park Arena OZK - a modern swimming pool that opened in 2018. It offers excellent conditions for pool disciplines and can hold up to 1200 spectators. The pool conditions will be as follows:

Number of lanes: 10
Lane length: 50m (164ft)
Lane depth: Varying depths from 2m (7ft) at one end to 3m (10ft) at the other end
Lane width: 2.5m (8ft)
Water temperature: 26°C (78.8°F)

Athletes will compete according to the following schedule:

20 June - Dynamic With Bifins (DYNB)
21 June - Dynamic Without Fins (DNF)
23 June - Static (STA)
24 June - Dynamic (DYN)

The medal ceremony for all the disciplines and the granting of the Natalia Molchanova Memorial Award will be held at the end of the championship. It is important to mention that AIDA encourages athletes to participate by providing monetary prizes to the winners, which is quite a rare case for freediving competitions in general. Last year, during 27th AIDA World Championship in Cyprus, the champions of every discipline were granted not only medals but also cash prizes. First-place winners were given 1,000EUR, second-place winners were awarded 750EUR, and 500EUR was given to the third-place recipients. Perhaps this year, athletes will have another opportunity to win monetary prizes.

Competition organizers awaited the athletes and prepared some useful gift bags for them in advance, which were given out during registration. The gift package included a competitor t-shirt, a branded hat, Aquasphere swimming goggles from DiveTec, a Fakir nose clip provided as a gift from Octopus, and an anti-fog spray. Another advantage of AIDA competitions is the mass media coverage of the event, which is quite important for the development of the sport. In addition to the traditionally arranged broadcast (with the excellent and well-known commentator Brandon Reed), the first day of the competition will be reported on by one of the two biggest national television companies of Bulgaria (who own 40% of shares in the Bulgarian TV market).

On June 18th, the Championship officially began with an opening ceremony attended by 130 athletes from 29 countries.

Many strong athletes and current world record holders arrived, which will surely make the Championship very interesting to watch. We anxiously await the performances of the World Record holders from Poland (Magdalena Solich-Talanda and Julia Kozerska) and France (Guillaume Bourdila). Hopefully, the very strong athletes William Joy of China, Rami Bladlav of Sweden, and Vitomir Maričić of Croatia will show us their true potential and surprise us with outstanding performances and possible new world records.

We are also happy to see the large national teams of Japan and Korea. Freediving is becoming very popular in these countries and athletes are developing quickly. Therefore, we might be lucky to see some new names on the pedestal, or at least witness some intense competition for medals by Japanese and Korean freedivers against the more experienced freedivers from Europe.

Every day of the Championship, we’ll inform you of the most anticipated performances to make sure that you don’t miss a second of the history of freediving in the making. We’ll also share the link to the online broadcast, and afterward, highlight the most remarkable events of the day, the names of the winners, and hopefully, new world records.

So stay tuned, cheer on the athletes, and don't miss out on news from Burgas!