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Free diving is a sport which basically is a form of underwater diving which completely relies on the diver’s capability to hold their breath until resurfacing rather than using a breathing apparatus for instance a scuba gear.

a free diver

In the past, free diving was practiced by the ancient culture people to gather food and harvest resources such as pearls and sponge. Moreover, they also used to reclaim sunken valuable and also help aid military campaigns all around the world.

Nowadays, free diving is itself a sport, as well as being a component of many sports, such as spearfishing, swimming, underwater rugby and underwater hockey.

The term freediving is basically associated with some competitive competition of breath-hold diving.

The main activity which attracts the most attention is the extreme sport of competitive apnea in which the participants attempt to attain huge depths, times, or distances in one single breath.

Freediving Disciplines

• Constant weight
• Constant weight without fins
• Free immersion
• Static apnea
• Dynamic apnea
• Dynamic apnea without fins
• No-limits apnea
• Variable weight apnea

Freediving at the World Games

Freediving is one of the disciplines under the "Underwater Sports" at the World Games. It was first introduced to the 2025 Chengdu World Games alongside Freediving for athletes with impairments.

This sport was contested in the Dynamic Apnoea category. In this category, athletes swim their maximum horizontal distance underwater, while still holding their breaths. There are two classes for both men and women - with no swimming aids and with either monfin or bi-fins.

Here are the medalists who won gold at the 2025 Chengdu Freediving event:

Similar Sports

• Finswimming — an underwater swimming sport where athletes race against each other while wearing breathing apparatus.
• Underwater Hockey — two teams of six push a puck along the bottom of a swimming pool. (also known as 'Octopush' or Water Hockey).
• Underwater Football — played in a swimming pool with snorkeling equipment, the aim is to maneuver a slightly negatively buoyant ball underwater (by carrying and passing) from one side of a pool to the other. Scoring is achieved by placing the ball in the gutter on the side of the pool.
• Underwater Ice Hockey — A variation of Ice Hockey played upside-down underneath frozen pools or ponds. Participants wear snorkeling equipment and wet suits and use the underside of the frozen surface as the playing area for a floating puck (also called sub-aqua ice hockey).
• Underwater Rugby — two teams compete for a slightly negatively buoyant ball (filled with saltwater) and score by placing it into the opponents' goal (heavy metal bucket) at the bottom of a swimming pool.
• Underwater Target Shooting — competitors free dive in a swimming pool, using spearguns to fire at targets.
• Aquathlon — an underwater sport where two competitors wearing masks and fins wrestle underwater in an attempt to remove a ribbon from each other's ankle band. It is also known as Underwater Wrestling.

Related Pages

• Complete list of sports
• The Encyclopedia of Sports — a list of every sport from around the world.
• List of Underwater Sports
• Breath Holding — How long can you hold your breath? An old test for assessing aerobic fitness.
• Underwater Swimming at the Olympic Games

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