Just at the end of 2014, I had an intense competition schedule.

First there was the 2nd World University Championships in Almaty, Kazachstan, held from the 18 - 21 December 2014.

This wasn't my first time there, because I've already been taking part in the World Cup competitions in Alma Ata a few years ago. I knew what to expect and was happy to see that the organization of this event was perfectly excecuted!

This event was an university championship, a kind of event which I really like, because there's always a different kind of atmosphere than at the usual World Cup competitions. I enjoy the feeling when there's less stress and less tension among the competitors.

During the four days of the Championship I had a start scheduled for every day - this was the first time in my carrier that I had so many starts one day after the other!

The first day was team pursuit day - 8 circuits - and we won! This gave me a lot of motivation for the next days.

On the second day of the competition I started in the 5000m race - my favorite distance. Unfortunately I missed by 0.4 second the podium and placed 4th.

Next day was the 10.000m start, when I decided I will totally give my all - and I won! My time was 14:33.52.

The 4th day was a Mass Start of 16 circuits, where I was leading up to the 4 last circuits, but the pursuit team was working together very well and the moment I weakened a bit they got me, so I placed 7th.

Still, two golden medals (one team medal, one individual) had really boosted my motivation and confidence in my future plans.

It was great to meet speed skating university students from all over the world, the charisma and positive energy of the people here were really what I needed.

The last competition of 2014 was being held in Warsaw, Poland on an open-air ice track and it was the Warsaw Single Distances Championship, which was also the qualifications for the European Championship in Chelyabinsk, Russia.

This competition lasted for 3 days and I was starting four times. On the shorter distances of 500m and 3000m I placed 4th and on the longer 5000m distance I got 2nd place! I also took part in both of the 500m sprints and placed 13th.

Even though I did really great in this Championship, it was a bitter-sweet experience. I actually qualified for the European Championship, but because my Association didn't complete the required formalities, I couldn't take part in the competition.

Either way, December was really great for me, thanks to the training I've been doing with the Czech speed skaters during my stay in Holland. I'd also like to say that if it wasn't for the help I've recieved from my general sponsor Grena Ltd. in 2014 I'd probably not be there and couldn't train and win those championships. I'm really grateful for the support!

I'm looking forward to 2015 and new opportunities! My plans are still unfolding, but I will soon let you know what will be going on with me in 2015! 

It was a great time for me, because I could meet my Polish freeediving friends, with whom I didn't compete for a long time.

What was specifically interesting in this International Silesia Freediving Cup was that every team that wanted to compete for the Grand Prize had to include at least one female competitor! A brilliant idea to encourage women to join the contest and encourage them to try freediving.

I was going there to mainly spend a nice time with friends and not to actually compete. This way, I managed to do same easy dives with DNF: 175m, STA: 6:59, DYN: 150m.

Actually, I put on my monofin for the first time in a really long time, so it was certainly funny to watch my dive! I was moving like a drunk person! 

At the winners decoration I was surprised by the Polish AIDA representatives, who awarded me with a honourable reward for being the first Polish World Record holder in DNF! This was an extremely pleasant moment for me.

After the Cup in Rybnik, I have now some time to relax and decompress before starting my new training plan in January.

I was invited to do some interviews in the Polish radio and television and will share the recordings with you soon!

During my stay in the Bahamas I also sat down with Chris from FreediveEarth and we had a very nice chat. It was a fabulous opportunity to be interviewed in-depth by someone who can relate to the hardships of the freediving journey. You can read the interview on the FreediveEarth website.

The ISU Speed Skating World Cup started off in November, with the season opening in Obihiro, Japan.

The next stop was in Seoul, South Korea, where I had my first start in the Male Division B 10.000 m race. The event took place from 21 - 23 November 2014.

I think I did pretty good, taking into account that I'm currently not yet at my top performance level. I placed 12th which got me 3 points in the World Cup classification with the time being 14:09.78.

What hit me after skating at the rink was that it had really the slowest ice I've ever raced on in my life. We call the ice "slow" or "fast" depending on many factors like air pressure, air temperature, humidity, height above sea level.

Apart form the sport event, I really wanted to do some sight-seeing in the city of Seoul, but because of the tight training plan I couldn't do it. The least I could do was watching the city through our bus window on our way from the hotel to the rink. I hope I will get to visit this city again!

Yesterday was the first day of the Vertical Blue 2014 Competition that is being held in one of the best freediving locations in the world (my personal #2 spot in the world) - the Dean's Blue Hole, Long Island.

My first announced depth was 113m, which was also a Polish National Record attempt and I accomplished this goal! The official gauge actually measured 114,5m! 

I had the pleasure of working with FIM champ Miguel Lozano, who coached me during this dive, so obviously it was a great dive!

Today will be my second attempt with announced depth 118m! Let's go!

Flash NEWS!

During Brno Freediving Competition I have just reached 226m in DNF which is a new WORLD RECORD!! 

Thanks Grena LTD and all other people for the support!

Roman Ondruj for organising this event!

More news and info once I get back home :)

As the World Cup qualifications are only days away, I concentrate fully on my training and hope my hard work through summer will pay off!

I'll give you a short report on what it's like to train for the World Cup qualifications!

In September I reduced my bike-training hours to trainings in the gym and on ice. I went with the Polish team to Spała (Poland) - where we did a lot of strenght training and were working ourselves into THE best shape for the coming winter season.

We spent the rest of the month in Berlin and Inzell, Germany, where the training was fully concentrated on the ice-skating practice.

I also had an opportunity to take part in the efficiency research examination done by the Sports Institute in Warsaw. The results are not in yet, but I'm really curious about them!

Luckily, I also got to spend a few days at home beetween training, so I could relax in the mountains and play with my dog - he's really young yet, so he likes to do puppy-things like biting everything into pieces - but either way, I miss him when I'm not home.

In the next days I'm going to have my first test-starts for the World Cup qualifications...

The real deal starts now!! Wish me luck!

Last week I was invited to speak at the Polish Diving Conference in Zakrzówek, Cracow on September 27th, 2014.

I really appreciated the invitation and prepared a half-hour long presentation about the training of body and mind in freediving.

As an introduction I arranged a screening of the documentary movie " On the other side of the mirror" by Michał Braum and the ImagePro studio. This documentary features my adventure with freediving and if you haven't seen it yet, here's a link to see it. 

As a side note, the movie was chosen for the Seattle Polish Film Festival, that is being held in October 10 - 19th, 2014 in Seattle, USA. The movie will be shown on October 15th, 2014.

It warms my heart to hear such news and to see that our hard work - mine at training, and Michał's at filmmaking - is recognized globally. I hope people will learn more about freediving and won't be as scared or prejudiced against this sport as it often happens now.

Coming back to the Congress. It was great to meet my friends and fellow Polish divers to share experiences and plans for the future. The event at the Zakrzówek Diving Base was also a great feast for all diving fans with stalls of diving equipment sellers. They provided everything for adults as well as kids!

If you were present at my speech, I hope you've learned something new or at least confirmed your already existing knowledge.

That's all for today, thanks for reading and don't be shy to visit my Facebook profile and to comment! You'll be hearing from me soon!

On the 31st of August 2014 I participated in the 19. Race around the Tatras, which is a demanding track around the highest Polish mountains and goes also through the Slovak territory.

Near 100 participants of various skill level had gathered at the starting line in Nowy Targ, Poland - so as the race started it was visible that various groups are being formed. 

I started out determined with the first group of around 15 riders. We rode together until the 120 km, when 4 riders (me included) started going faster uphill in Strbske Pleso, Slovakia. We were going like this to around the 200km, but on a small hill in Białka Tatrzańska I decided to go a bit faster and arrived alone on the finish line with the time 05:45:00.

At the finish line I was told that I set a new record for this track: 202 km in 05:45:00 which is 13 minutes faster than the former record. I was really surprised! :)

It was not an easy track, but the satisfaction of finishing 202km in under 6 hours was soothing the fatigue ;)

After the race everyone got a warm meal and we could exchange our opinions on the race. 

It was a great adventure for me and I'm grateful to my general sponsor Grena Ltd. because without the bike they made available for me, I couldn't have made such a progress during the past months!

This was my first start in this Race and I'm sure you will see me there again! :)

This year my summer started out so good, it surprised me a tiny little bit.

After winning the Polish Freediving Championship in April I felt confident at the start of the AIDA Czech National Championship 2014 in Brno, where I set another personal best and national record: 213 m DNF (Dynamic apnea without fins) on June 7th, 2014. This is just 12m apart from the world record, which is 225m!

You can view the video from this official start on my youtube channel:  

A big thanks goes out to Ola, who was - as always - a great support during the championship and has also filmed the video you can now view.

After the Championship, I went back to training. With around 5 months of season preparations ahead of me I decided to change my diet a bit to get even better results. Right now, I'm sticking to a gluten-free diet. 

I must say the training I'm doing this year is really hard. I'm pushing at my limits, so I can better my result achived in June in Brno. It's hard, but at the same time I'm confident that this will bring me closer to my goal.

Right now I'm training in the water around 2-3 times a week and the rest of the time I'm doing strenght training. I train mainly in Zakrzówek, a freediving station near Cracow, Poland. To prepare my lungs for the conditions found in deeper areas of water I train by diving in to the bottom 30m deep only with a small amount of air (exhaling).

This training is mainly focused on my start at the Vertical Blue Championship in Novemer, where all the best freedivers in the world gather to reach new depths and set records. I hope for setting some new records, too. The competition will be held November 27th — December 5th 2014, at Dean's Blue Hole, Bahamas. I already got my ticket booking confirmed! :)

As the summer goes by my trainings continue to be as hard and harsh as ever! 

Regardless of the weather, I already rode more than 2500 km on my racing bike, which was bought for me by my sponsor - Grena Ltd.

It's great to be back on track with my team-mates and I really feel I'm making progress thanks to my intense training.

At the end of July our whole team went to Inzell in Germany to train speed skating in a stadium hall ice rink - the Max Aicher Arena. It's a pity we don't have such a facility in Poland, so athletes are forced to train abroad.

After coming back home at the beginning of August I started training with the Sochi bronze medal winning Konrad Niedzwiedzki in Zakopane. It was a great experience to train with an athlete like him! I look forward to our next trainings.

By increasing the amount of my training I realised I need a better diet. Therefore, I started working with a specialised sports nutritionist, who will help me plan balanced meals and will keep an eye on the supplements I need to take. I can't wait to feel the results of this diet!

On August 13th, together with my team-mates we started our team training in Sanok, Poland. We were training on roller blades, bikes as well as on the short track.

Apart from training, I also made time to take part in a competition – the prestigious Tour de Pologne for Amateurs race on the 8th of August. I placed 11th out of 1389 participants who finished the race. I was riding the 31,8km track and finished it in under one hour (0:59:15), which gives an average riding speed of 32,2 km/h.

I'm already planning my start on the 31st of August in  the 19th Race around the Tatras – 205 km track in the highest mountains of Poland! It's going to be fun! This is one of my favourite tracks, so I'm happy I can test my current training preparation in this race.

That's all for now and...let's get back to training! :)

Everything's ready and set!! 

My starting number:

Update: 08-08-2014 14:30

Just got news that Sebastian placed 11th in the general category and was 4th in his own category!
Details, times and photos will be coming soon! 

Update: 13-08-2014 10:00

As mentioned before, I got 11th place in the general ranking with finishing the race with the time: 0:59:15 and avarage speed of 32.2 km/h.

You can find some pictures already in the gallery!

As part of my preparations for the winter season I train a lot on my new bike. The Tour de Pologne for Amateurs is a great opportunity to see how far I've come during this training season.

So keep your fingers crossed for August, 8th!

On the homepage of Tour de Pologne for Amateurs you can find all information about this event and see the route.

The camp on Tenerife was like a introduction to the preparations for the new season 2014/2015. 

There were 4 participants (team members) and the trainer Krzysztof Niedźwiedzki. The other part of the team had their training camp on Mallorca 2 weeks before us.

Let's take a look at the numers: 450 km in 5 days and 7500 m elevation, so really a mountain view.

After a few hours daily on the bike saddle we also had time to relax in the pool or playing billiards and others.

The biggest impression of this trip for me was meeting Chris Froome with his group "Sky" - winner of last years' Tour de France and the front-runner of winning the "Big Loop" - as well as Alberto Contador of Saxo Thinkoff  on a mountain track