We are happy to announce that our ambassador, Mateusz Malina has set another world record, during the 2019 CMAS Freediving Indoor European Championship that was held in Istanbul, Turkey. In the competition dynamics in the fins (DYN), the Pole reached a distance of 316 meters.

Mateusz Malina is one of the most decorated DYN divers in the world. After three days of the tournament, he won three medals in all colors. On the first day in the competition without fins - DNF, he won silver. He expected it to be a winning distance, but during the last competition, Frenchman Guillaume Bourdil set a new world record and won the gold medal with a fantastic performance. On the second day of the championships, he won a bronze medal in statics (STA). On the last day of the tournament, it was time for the DYN category, which gave Matt a gold medal and a new world record.

As he says about his record in DYN:

“I couldn’t dream about this result many years ago but hard work, dedication, countless sacrifices, constantly digging into and questioning current methods of training, lots and lots of patience, infinite curiousness of discovering human body limits made this dream become a reality. This is not the end of the road. This is just the beginning of new era in pool freediving. Dive safe and enjoy the blue. Now the depth season starts for me!”

And if you've ever wondered what a diver thinks during a dive, you can find out by watching the video below:

 

 

Last modified on Sunday, 14 July 2019

Matt Malina surprises us with each and every tournament he takes part in. At the end of June the Individual AIDA Pool World Championships took place in Belgrade, Serbia.

Matt defended his DNF World Champion title and won a medal in each discipline he took part in – as the only competitor!

In his best discipline, the DNF (no-fin dynamics) he placed 1st and defended his World Title, diving 226m on June 28th, 2018 which is unofficial World Record in an Olympic pool (50 m long). It’s worth mentioning that this was his 3rd time in a row winning this discipline!

In DYN (dynamics with a monofin) Matt says he “got lucky” and won a bronze medal diving 203m. The last start of the tournament was the STA (static holding breath underwater) discipline, where Matt also won the bronze medal AND a National Record of 8 minutes 46 seconds!

The tournament lasted 6 days day-after-day, without a break, which really took a toll on the participant’s bodies. Matt says:

It was a tiresome time, but now that it’s over I can say I’m very proud of myself. In the general classification (all points) I lost after a tough fight with Goran Colak by 0,8 point (which is 4 seconds). It’s not the goal, but the road to it that counts. These kind of tournaments have their own dynamics, their ups and downs and I got to experience the full spectrum! :)
During those 6 days I had one hard day, when the tiredness caught up with me as well as the pressure, which resulted in me giving up on my dive too early – during the DYN finals after turning at 200m I was feeling like 250m during training – I couldn’t fight it, my body wouldn’t listen.

What’s important, every tournament start is a lesson for future dives, there are no failures. After all, you can’t win everything.

As usual a huge support was Matt’s wife Aleksandra, who he claims to be responsible for half of his successes! :)

This time, the tournament was joined by Matt’s training partners Karol Karcz and Michał Dąbrowski, and the support of the “Limitless Team” was visible throughout the whole tournament.

Matt would like to thank everyone who supported him during his preparations as well as during the tournament and is proud to be able to represent his home country Poland on the international level with many great athletes!

Last modified on Thursday, 05 July 2018

The freediving season is slowly starting and the best freedivers in the world are warming up for the upcoming world championship competition.

Matt Malina, Grena® sponsored athlete started out strong with breaking yet another of his records!

Fazza Championships 2018 in Dubai

An early spring competition is the Fazza Championships, which is being held annually in Dubai, UAE to commemorate the country’s ancestors. This year it took place on 23 – 24 March, 2018.

2015 was Matt’s first attempt at the competition  and fromt here he slowly started to adjust his training to suit the rules of the to the competition – very different than the AIDA. To put it simply, it’s a competition in static breath-hold, holding on to a rope without any equipment.

When asked, what motivates him in his journey as a freediver and athlete, Matt always says it’s to surpass his own limits. During this competition, he proved himself right and surpassed his limits with a dive of 10 min and 4 seconds and taking 2nd place in the competition.

First place took the amazing Goran Colak, with incredible 11 minutes 6 seconds and 3rd to Veljano Zanki with 9 min 21 seconds. There was also a 4th person in a party, Branko Petrovic with ~10 minutes 10 seconds but was disqualified due to blackout.

Preparing for Fazza involved a lot of fasting and caloric restriction. Matt started at the Fazza competition weighting 72 kg, which is 14kg (!) less then when he was in his top dynamics shape while setting world records in world championships in 2016. That is a huge change in the body and how it works under water.

About the dive, Matt says:

“The attempt was enjoyable and kind of easy compared to my last year performance. I was pretty surprised. I did my maximum for that day, so I can’t complain about the end result. However I’ve made some mistakes during training phase. I’m already looking forward for next year training.”

All of this wouldn’t be possible without the amazing support of Matt’s wife – Ola, who supported him during the preparations, often sacrificing a lot of time to help Matt train. Not without an importance was the help of Matt’s training partners Karol Karcz and Michal Dabrowski!

Matt also adds:

“I would like to thank my official sponsor Grena LTD for their continuous support!”

We are happy to support you, Matt! And wish you great success in the coming season!

Next stop:

Matt’s next competition will be on home turf in Jaworzno, Poland on May 12th and in the Czech Republic the following week. The next Championship competition will be in less than 3 months at the AIDA Individual Pool World Championships. The event will be held from June 23 to July 1, 2018 in Belgrade, Serbia.

Bonus: Matt talks at an TEDx event

Matt will talk at a local TEDxWSB event in Wroclaw, Poland on Tuesday, pril 24th at 10:20 AM about Freediving and how to manage your emotions. The talk will be in Polish, but let’s hope for some English subtitles coming soon!
You can watch the stream here: https://www.facebook.com/WSBwroclaw/

Last modified on Monday, 23 April 2018

In September 2016, at the Brno MiniComp in Czech, Matt Malina attempted to break the current record in Bi-Fin dynamics. 

First of all, some background info. Matt usually competes in competitions defined by AIDA rules - one of the biggest freediving organizations. 

The bi-fin dynamics discipline is not officially recognized by AIDA, but it is by CMAS and Pure Apnea (other organizations and other conditions). The competition (Brno Minicomp 2016) was organized on AIDA/Pure Apnea standards, thus this record is official by Pure Apnea standards and unofficial (not recognized) by CMAS. 

There are 3 different techniques for swimming with bi-find, and Matt went with the one which proved to be the most effective for him, the "hands above the head and dolphin kick".

With having 4 (yes, four!) training sessions with bi-fins behind him, Matt attempted to break the current World Record, which was at 226,5 m, done by Andrea Vitturini (ITA) during CMAS 9th Indoor World Championships. 

As Matt says about the results:

"I came up crystal clean at 231 meters and got 2 meters off my performance because of turning below the step. I knew it will happen but decided to not care about it during the dive. Relaxation is the key and I was focusing on that. I think with flat pool, fully optimized and pushing to my maximum, 250 + should be very well possible, but lets keep something for the future."

We will definitely look forward to this kind of future!

 

You can read Matt's full relation here.

Last modified on Monday, 12 December 2016

Matt participated in the AIDA Individual Pool World Championships 2016 and surprised everyone with breaking record after record!

The competition took place on 25th June - 3rd July 2016 in Turku, Finland.

Matt broke three world records during this competition - one during the eliminations and two in the finals.

The current official record stands as follows:

DYN 300m WR 3rd of July 2016, Turku, Finland, AIDA Individual Pool World Championships 2016 - current World Record

DNF 244m WR 2nd of July 2016, Turku, Finland, AIDA Individual Pool World Championships 2016 - current World Record

DNF 232m WR 28th of June 2016, Turku, Finland, AIDA Individual Pool World Championships 2016

Below you can read Matt's thoughts in an emotional post made right after the competition on July 4th, 2016:

My dream came true, I've become double World Champion (DNF&DYN) with World Records set in the same swims :)

You may not believe but literally after yesterday’s 300 [m] I was in constant movement and only now after getting back home I have a couple of minutes to write few words about World Championships in Turku. There is a lot to write about which I will do at some point. I'm full of emotions but this picture of Daan Verhoeven describes it all.

I AM EXTREMELY HAPPY.

I have broken 3 World Records in 2 disciplines, 232m in DNF qualifications, improving it in finals by another 12m up to 244m. To me it is a history, it’s a record that lasted 6 years and no-one thought it will be beaten any time soon, at least not until last month :) It means to me so much more than that 300m but it’s less admirable by people because it’s not a round number :) I still can’t believe that I have improved it by 12m and there was much more in tank.

I’ve calculated a few months ago that I should be capable of doing 252m on a perfect day, based on my speed, stroke count etc. but even that number is wrong. Numbers are wrong, it’s all wrong because it’s Limitless. Numbers are in our heads and on this championship I’ve focused on making good dives with good feelings, keeping thinking about numbers just for last part of dives as a motivational tool. I must say it worked wonders for me! I came to Turku to defend my DNF title, DYN was the 2nd priority because I knew there will be no rest after DNF finals and there are athletes strictly focusing on DNF or DYN only during this championships. On the other hand, I knew that if I can do around 250 DNF, 300m DYN shouldn’t be a problem even without rest so let’s try to swim and see how it goes. I did it, I have swum 300m and became World Champion in DYN, splitting the record with Georgios Panagiotakis but I got the gold because my announcement was higher (it was closer to actually reached distance by 1m). 

 

You can read an in-depth interview with the World Champ here: https://www.deeperblue.com/interview-mateusz-matt-malina/

[The record-breaking 300m dive on YouTube]

Matt also started writing his blog in Polish, so if you're a Polish-speaking fan, we encourage you to read his blog here: http://mattmalina.com/

You can find some English posts there, too.

Stay tuned for more info from the Champ!

Photo courtesy of: Daan Verhoeven

 

Last modified on Thursday, 10 November 2016