Biggest goal for this year achieved. I am now the World Champion and World Record holder in DNF!

Now it’s time to beat the World Record at World Championships :)

8 months ago when I broke the WR in DNF I thought nothing is going to stop me from winning in Belgrade. I remember how disappointed I was in 2013 when I have failed.

However, due to some personal issues my training this yearwas not going as planned. After a 4,5 month break from DNF I’ve started practicing it in the middle of March with 125-150m swims which felt pretty bad. I was still struggling and thought that there is not enough time. However, I did my best and everything clicked in the middle of May. I was full of optimistic thoughts. I got one spike down in my last week of training, cause I quit few dives at 125m. After these ups and downs I went to Belgrade, and didn’t really know what to expect. I knew my body was in a best shape it ever was, but my mind liked to play tricks on me. 

After my DNF heats during the final eliminations in Belgrade I knew everything was right and I was calm.

In the A - Final I have executed my dive perfectly and I’m really happy about it. At the time I thought World Championships are about winning medals not breaking records. So I took the conservative approach and decided to come up after I saw middle of the pool at 212,5m. Final distance was 214m (1m was reduced for turning below steps again:) ) I was frequently asked If I would make it to the wall. To be honest I can’t be sure, cause hypoxia is an unknown queen that beat really experienced freediver Natalia Molchanova in the DNF finals, resulting in her discqualification due to black-out... 

Frankly speaking the dive felt much cleaner than the one in Brno. In Brno when I set a new WR, while turning at 200m I thought in a rush "I go for next wall no matter what like a kamikaze". I still came up clean.

However in Belgrade at 200m I was cleaner in my head and I thought "Ok, let’s play it safe, swim past the mark in the middle of the pool and take at least silver medal". It was enough for gold luckily.

I don’t regret that decision cause I believe it was a right one. After my WR in Brno I jumped with my PB pretty heavily and it was psychologically hard to repeat that kind of dive. Now I have achieved few of those ~215m dives pretty clean and calm, something clicked in me and I feel 225m dives will become much easier mentally in the future.

If this had been a normal competition, next to the wall (coming up on ropes is a bit more stressful), I would probably have gone in kamikaze-mode for that New Zealand NR and I think I would have made it! But then again it would build a mental barrier in me due to big jumps in my personal records. In the end I prefer to take things slow, with constant progress and one day this record will fall. I only hope for enough training motivation :)

I look forward for the AIDA Depth World Championships now.

Thanks to Ola, my family, my friends, my general sponsor Grena LTD, 35WOG for providing me training facility and all supporters, who crossed their fingers for me!

You can view more pictures in the Gallery.

 

Last modified on Tuesday, 30 June 2015

Hello everybody!

Last weekend I've taken part in the Polish Freediving Pool Championships held in Morawica near Kielce. 

They were organised by the Freediving Club Kielecki Klub Freedivingu „DNF” at the Koral swimming pool.

I have won first place overall with achieving the following results: 203m DNF, 6:59 STA and last but not least 186m DYN. This way I have defended the title of Polish champion in all of the pool disciplines. 

It was my last competition before the Freediving Pool World Championships that are taking place in Belgrade next month. Based on my results it's easy to see that I was primarly focused on DNF this part of year. I'm a bit dissapointed about my static, because I've already achieved 8+ min in training a few days earlier but let's see if I can pull that off next time in competition!

Right now I have less than a month left before Belgrade. I feel my DNF is in a good place and I just need some fine tunning. After that I will try to focus a bit more on my monofin swims. We are heading to the World Championships with a strong Polish team and I hope everyone will do their personal bests. I'm especially looking forward to the performance of the guys from Cracow which I used to train with for a long time, Karol Karcz and Michał Dąbrowski.

Enjoy the blue and dive safe!

Matt

Last modified on Tuesday, 26 May 2015

For the last few months I haven't been able to take part in any of the World Cup Series competitions, but luckily it was not because of an injury. :)

After ending the year 2014 with a good vibe after winning some races during the World University Championship in Almaty, Kazachstan as well as winning 2nd place in the Warsaw Single Distances Championship, I was ready and in good shape to take on new races during the World Cup Competition.

During this time top speed skater and champion Martina Sáblíková and her trainer Peter Nowak reached out to me and invited me to their training camp alongside the Czech speed skating representatives. So this is where I spent the rest of the season, training with Martina and the Czech team. And belive me, it was an intense 3 months!! 

January 2015: Collalbo, Italy (training camp); Hamar, Norway (World Cup 5)

The Czech have their Speed Skating training base in Collalbo, Italy and have come here to train for many years already. The training was very hard for me, but the hardships one endure to get better results...;) After that was Hamar and the next World Cup competition...unfortunately without my participation, even though I felt really good and ready for the race.

February: Inzell, Germany (training camp); Heerenveen, Netherlands (World Cup 6)

Once the competition in Hamar was over we went directly to Inzell, Germany to prepare for the next one.  The training I did was focused on competition races, so I am going to be prepared for the next season. Again, it was very hard training which resulted in two gold medals...not mine of course as I was not to compete.Sáblíková won both the 3 km and 5 km race and became world champion of the female division!

March: Calgary, Canada (2015 World Allround Speed Skating Championships); Erfurt, Germany (World Cup Finale 2014/15)

At the beginning of March, the extreme training continued in Calgary and Sáblíková won the title of World Allround Champion. Next was the Finale of the World Cup 2014/15 season in Erfurt, Germany. Martina Sáblíková won her 9th in a row World Cup in the 3 km and 5 km races.

After the season has ended everyone went home to get some rest and restart the engine for the next season preparations. The time spent with the Czech representatives was a great experience for me. I'm proud to have been able to help out a little bit with tha training of such a talented athlete like Martina.

Even though I couldn't take part in the competiton during these last 3 months I'm happy with how the season turned out and I'm really optimistic about the future!

Now I'm using my time to get a bit in shape before the real season preparations start. I'm swinning a lot and doing some skitouring in the Tatra mountains. I admit the latter has became a great passion of mine recently. I've already registered for the Malinowski Memorial on April 18th and I'm also planning to compete in some bike and roller blades competitions.

Last modified on Friday, 10 April 2015

I’m back from Dubai with a bag full of experience :)

As I expected beforehand the Fazza diving competition was a challenge on a whole different level. It has its own set of rules that differ from the AIDA rules most freedivers know and follow. The uniqueness of the rules require adequate preparations throughout the year. This year I went to compete there, but mostly to learn. I won't lie to you, static is my weakest discipline and least liked by me, but lately this feeling has slowly began to change. You can read about the rules and my preparations for this competition in my previous blog post.

Apart from this, I’ve noticed some positive emotions while training for the competition. To be honest, the Fazza static discipline suits me more than "normal" static and I will definitely try to improve on it, because I see the challenge here and I like challenges.

As for results I did 6:15 which got me qualified into finals, but in the finals I have given up the attempt somewhere past 4 minutes. Both results are quite a bit less than I did during training, but Rome was not build in one day :) and I still have felt like an amateur taking part in this competition.

Now it is time to go back to training for my usual disciplines, because the AIDA Pool World Championships are coming soon. I look forward to it!

Last modified on Tuesday, 17 March 2015

Hello fellow Freedivers and supporters,

Recently I have decided to take part in the Fazza 3 Championships which will take place from 5 - 7 March 2015 in Dubai, UAE.

I was preparing one month for this competition, which is a very short time frame considering that the discipline over there is completely different from what we are used to.

The basic rules for the competition are simple:

No equipment whatsoever is allowed and an athlete has to stay as long as he can underwater while holding the rope. Time is counted as soon as the last part of the body immerses and stops as soon as any part of the body emerges. It’s prohibited to tie yourself to the rope anyhow and competitor has to hold it voluntary. Obviously the athlete has no idea about the time during the hold.

I’m looking forward to this competition as it will obviously be a good lesson for me. I have a lot of experience to gain in this new field and I hope that after this year I will keep coming back to Dubai every year.

I’m heading to Dubai on Saturday for two weeks. During the first week I will take part in Fazza 3 Championships and  during the second week for the first time in my life I will conduct the Freedivng Clinic together with Static Champion Branko Petrovic, who won the Fazza 3 Championships two times in a row!

Thank you Grena Ltd. for providing me with accomodation in Dubai and all-round support!

Last modified on Thursday, 26 February 2015