Millstätter See, Austria

Perfect end-of-summer weather (24-25 ºC), sunshine and a beautiful scenery (see photo on the right). Add some local hospitality and you have the perfect setting for a freediving event. Combine that with the organizational skills of Harald Lautner, the heart of the Heart of Europe competition, then you can have two days of great freediving and lots of fun.

Killing two birds with one stone

Organizing a Freediving Open takes a lot of money. You have to make sure you have access to the venues: in our case the swimming pool in Millstatt and the Millstätter Lake. You have to set up a couple of platforms on the lake, provide speedboats that ferry the competitors and the crew to the platforms and back to the shore. You also need a dozen of scuba divers, a water rescue medical team and doctors on board to make sure that the freedivers receive instant help if they black out. And if you want to register your event as an official AIDA competition, then you need to fly two AIDA judges to the event. All that takes a lot of money and good planning.

We had that all in Austria and something else as well. The icing on the cake was the Flying Fish of Austria, Herbert Nitsch, who announced five world records for Millstatt, as a „sideevent”. It was a logical step on part of Herbert to use the Carinthian event (the judges, the crew and the platform) for his world record attempts. Let’s start with his adventures.

Those of you who have been following our freediving section, by now, know Herbert quite well. He is famous for his daredevil spirit and if someone takes away one of his world records, you can be sure that he will go beyond even his own limits to get them back. By the time we arrived to Millstätter See, he had already made one new world record.

Martin Stepanek, with the -93 m tag Photo: Gareth Powell

The spy story of Millstätter See

For most people, doing one world record is a huge achievement and Herbert did three altogether in three days!!! And he had two other, almost successful attempts. Even though Herbert made his world records in Millstätter See, at the site of the Carinthian Open, the paragraphs below will be news even for most of those freedivers who were taking part in the competition. So here is the spy story about the Diving Machine of Austria.

4th September, 2003, Thursday: Herbert starts his records on the platform with the Constant Weight with fins category, with –95 meters. He he did not have much luck in that discipline at the Cyprus Open (the world championship of freediving) in May, while the Czech Martin Stepanek went down to –93 m and became world champion. Herbert wanted to take the record away from Martin. (Martin is suffering from a sinus infection, that’s why he is unable to take a revenge for at least a few weeks. More about that in our interview with Martin).

On Thursday, Herbert Nitsch also made an attempt in the Free Immension discipline, with –100 meters, but he grabbed the rope 15 centimeters higher than the –100 mark, and since there was no mark at –99 meters, even that depth was not recognized by the two judges. (They used the video tape made underwater to see what Herbert was doing at the depth that no freediver had reached before without any artificial help. (The No Limit record is deeper than –160 m, but the freedivers use a sled to get down there in that category.)

Herbert dressing up for his attempts

Herbert was not discouraged by his missing 15 centimeters. It was only Thursday, and the judges were in Millstatt till Sunday.

5th September, 2003, Friday: In the morning, the competitors of the Carinthian Open were getting ready for the Static event in the afternoon. Some of them went out to the platform on the lake to do some training. I went out with the Hungarians, to see how it looks. When we were approaching the platform, we saw that Herbert was out there with the judges. They allowed me on the platform, because I belonged to the press corps. I told Herbert – half-jokingly - that it was my birthday, so a world record would be a good birthday present. He did not disappoint. Even though he had a Static competition in the afternoon, he was planning to make a world record attempt in Free Immersion at –100 meters (again) and to extend his –95 m record in Constant Weight by 5 meters. „If we have the time, I’ll try both”- he said, like he was talking about doing ten more sit-ups, if he has the time. –100 meters is an unchartered territory. No one knows what happens to the human body down there, but Herbert set his mind to it, and he had only that weekend with the judges, so he was in a hurry.

A world record, with Hungarian help:

Luc Wider (in white), the two Hungarian safety divers (in neoprene) and the doctor pulling the rope together

He started with Free Immersion. There were two cameramen filming the event above the water for AIDA, with the cameras rolling non-stop. They also lowered a camera down to –100 meters and scuba divers were ready to descend to help him down there in case something goes wrong. The two AIDA judges (Luc Wider from Switzerland and Bill Strömberg from Sweden) were overseeing the attempt above the ground. Besides them, there was a doctor on the platform, and the crew of Spiegel TV and me filming the event…and two Hungarian freedivers, practicing nearby who were going to have an important role later.

Herbert got ready, did some breathing practice and descended. He was down for two minutes already, at half-way so to say, when Luc, the Swiss judge went to the Hungarian freedivers, Jani Busi and Andras Munkas, and said the following to them. „You are going to be the first safety diver, and you will be the second. But hurry up, we do not have much time, you have to descend. And do not touch Herbert, unless you see that he has major problems”.

He looks like a Martian birthday gift

Herbert was making a world record attempt, trying to reach –100 m, where no human being had been before, and they did not have safety divers. It was simply ridiculous. Of course, the Hungarians were happy to help, and since they had to go down only to –20 m, it was no problem for them. Nonetheless, if you are the safety diver, and there is a freediver coming up from –100 m, you are responsible for his well-being. It is an important role. Their help was not needed, Herbert resurfaced without a problem, his mind was clear, he recieved OKs from the judges. He inhaled oxygen from a bottle on the platform, supervised by the doctor on board, and after two-three minutes, he was ready for interviews, smiling. All the judges had left to do was to examine the underwater videotape, to make sure that he reached the –100 m mark. The video showed that he did, so Herbert became the 100 m man.

Do you remember how significant it was when Jacques Mayol reached –100 meters in No Limit? The Big Blue, the movie made about it, was an inspiration for most of today’s competitors to become freedivers. Herbert did –100 m on September 5th, 2003, with his own power. Some freedivers argue that with the technique of going down face down, swimming, the limit is around 100 meters. (The lake is 154 m deep, so there is still space left to conquer.) Two years ago Herbert was happy to reach –60 m. And now, he just took some rest and was ready to try another world record and to compete in Static in the afternoon.

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VIDEO OF THE WORLD RECORD:
In order to be able to watch the video, you need a DivX Codec. In case you do not have one, you can download it from divx.com for free.
We did not want the downloading to last forever, so it is divided into sections.
- Here you can watch Herbert‘s descend
- ...the hustle about the safety divers
- ...Herbert resurfacing
- ...the judges checking the watches and Herbert starting to inhale the oxygen
In case you still have problems downloading the video, take a look at our photo gallery.
PHOTO GALLERY OF THE WORLD RECORD

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After about two hours of rest, Herbert was ready to go to –100 m in Constant Weight. (He did –95 m the day before.) The freedivers in Millstatt were busy with the mental preparation for their competition in Static, starting in a couple of hours, so no one was available for the safety diver role. They started to make phone calls, trying to convince someone to help Herbert. For 99% of the world’s freedivers, freediving is something you prepare yourself for the whole day. Herbert went down nonetheless, after much hustle. As he told me afterwards, the problem of finding safety divers had an effect on him. His preparation was not perfect and, on the way down, he encountered a current in the lake. It pushed the rope a little to the side and he had to reach for it. (At –100 meters in the Millstätter Lake, it is pitch dark and 4 ºC cold.) That search for the rope cost him 15 seconds and that delay was enough to cost him the world record. He came up with a samba (he lost his motor control), his mind was not clear enough to make his record attempt valid.

He most probably would have made two –100 meter records in one day, in two different disciplines, had he had the perfect circumstances. Unreal!

After his two world record attempts, with a slight headache, he drove to the swimming pool nearby, in Millstatt and took part in the Static Competition. In the second part of our coverage of the Carinthian Open, where we deal with the Competition itself, you can read how he did in that. Let’s get back to his record attempts, because he was not finished with them yet.

Herbert (in green) with a monofin at the Constant Weight competition

6th September, 2003, Saturday: After the Static Competition on Friday, Saturday was the day for Constant Weight. Herbert announced a „mere” –94 meters, which would have been a world record two days before. He went down to –94 meters and came up, holding a rubber ribbon in his hand, but no tag, indicating that he indeed went down to –94 m. (There was no underwater camera at the competition at that depth.) The judges accepted the rubber as a proof after checking his depth watch.

At the end of the competition, almost everyone left the platform, because we were told that it was over, and the judges were going to sit down and analyze the surface videos, to make sure that everything went fine. What we were not told was that they stayed there with Herbert, because they wanted to do another record as well. The official website of AIDA has the following written at the Current World Record section: Herbert Nitsch, Constant Weight without fins, -50 m, made on 6th September, 2003 at 15h05 CET. After everyone left the platform.

Herbert wanted to have only the officials on the platform

Top Secret

It is understandable that he did not want spectators or the media around him, he wanted peace and silence, to be able to concentrate. What is more difficult to comprehend is why they kept it a secret at the Prize Giving ceremony in the evening as well. „By the way, I did not only do –95 m in Constant Weight with fins two days ago, -100 m in Free Immension yesterday, but I did –50 m in Constant Weight without fins today, after you guys left” would have been nice to hear.

The culmination of the secrecy sorrounding his world records happened around 8 pm. I was looking for Luc Wilder, because I was told that he had the official results of the Carinthian Open and I wanted a copy, to be able to post it with the article about the event. I was told by Bill Strömberg, the other judge that Luc was in the toilet. That moment, Luc opened the door, and came out of the toilet with Herbert. They received some remarks questioning their sexual orientation, but it is more probable that they were signing the official documents about his record. In the toilet.

- Two weeks after the event, Harald Lautner, the organizer of the Heart of Europe revealed the secret around the toilet. I should have realized that myself, having talked to the doping doctor of AIDA a number of times: Luc followed Herbert into the toilet, because he had to check that the testing sample for the doping test (urine) was really Herbert‘ s. He was only following the rules.

What’s next?

Carlos Coste has already announced a world record attempt of –96 m for Constant Weight with fins and –101 meters for Free Immersion. The Danish world record holder of the Dynamic without fins category, Stig Severinsen, has announced –41 m for the Constant Weight without fins category, but that was received by AIDA before Sept 6th, so if Stig wants to be a record holder, he has to go deeper than Herbert’s –50 m. The same applies for Carlos Coste’s –48m announcement in the same category. So the water is boiling around the freediver elite again.

I do not claim to have understood how Herbert does what he does even though I saw him doing it. I crossed my fingers for him, hoping that he goes down without any problem. He deserves praise and admiration for his ability to dive like a machine and staying approachable all the time.

(The second part of our coverage of the Heart of Europe will be available online from Monday (Sept 8th) afternoon.)

The disciplines in which Herbert made new records, on the official website of AIDA (as of September 7th, 2003)