[News] Stig Severinsen achieves first 20 minute breath-hold

[DeeperBlue.com]

Stig Åvall Severinsen completed a 20 minute, 10 second static breath-hold after breathing pure oxygen for 12 minutes. The attempt was completed for a new Guinness World Record in Grenna, Denmark.With his dive today, Stig Åvall Severi...

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[island_sands]

Cr@ppppp!!!! That's just awesome, I mean, it seems almost impossible! wow!

 

[kelp princess]

incredible!

i just can't even imagine - congrats to Stig :king

cheers,

kp

 

[Goran Colak]

Check the date

 

[CEngelbrecht]

Can someone confirm it's not an April's fool? Stig did talk a lot about some Guiness thing coming up.

 

[DivingDane]

i'm pretty sure its legit?

if it is then "GO the DANES!!!!!!!"

incredible dive! the 20min barrier is Broken!

DD

 

[trux]

A short video of the record

 

[Kars]

It looked like he could have done 10 more , btw using normal air he has done a 10+ breathhold!

 

[Jee]

"using normal air he has done a 10+ breathhold!"
Wow! That is perhaps more valuable, than the 20 w O2.

Anyway, grats for the breaking the 20!

BTW: how many freedivers are around the world over 10 minutes (ever)?

 

[Kars]

I know of:

Tom Sietas,
Stefan Mifsud,
Stig Severinsen.

 

[trux]

I believe, I heard the first was in fact Sam Still. And I heard rumours also Guy Brew, and Ulf Dextegen are able of it in training.

 

[wesseldk]

It is good enough, he was also out the day after to tell that it was not an April Fool. even his sponsors were skeptical. As far as I know:blackeye

 

[Johan Andersson]

Congratulations to Stig. That is indeed the longest breath-hold I have ever heard of.

However, even though I have rarely seen it referenced, John Mithoefer wrote the following in 1965:

“As inspired oxygen tension increases or initial carbon dioxide tension is lowered by hyperventilation, breath-holding time becomes progressively prolonged up to the astonishing length of 20 minutes and 5 seconds after 7 minutes of hyperventilation with air followed by several deep breaths of oxygen. This feat is said to have been accomplished at Wesleyan University by a student named E. Frechette, a cross-country runner who was in peak physical training at the time of the breath hold; he is said to have had an unusually large vital capacity in relation to his body size.”

(Citation from “Mithoefer, J.C. (1965). The breaking point of breath holding. In: Rahn, H., and Yokoyama, T. (eds.) Physiology of breath-hold diving and the Ama of Japan. Publication no. 1341. National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, Washington, DC., p. 195-205.”)

In his text, Mithoefer refers to personal communications with someone called R.A. Gortner at the Dept. of Biology at Wesleyan University. Obviously, I cannot guarantee that the statement is correct, but if true, the 20 min limit was broken more than 45 years ago. But I guess that will be difficult to verify...

 

[Billextreme]

Hi all,

Only two this far have passed 10 minutes. Sietas and Mifsud.

S. Still was close with his 9'54" but never over.

We have a few in the 9 min group, but I am not sure if anyone else have passed 9'30".

The pure oxygene thing is only a gimmick without adding any obvious function or value. It's a media thing and have nothing to do with real freediving. (basta)

There have been several over 20 minutes, and now I also have info about 21 minutes plus from one guy.

Stig did it with Guinness there, and this was the first time Guinness have anyone passing 20 minutes. There was over 150 spectators + a number of sharks swimming around him... and me.

have a nice evening
/B

 

[Jorg]

So what happens when somebody does a 20 minute breath hold on 100% oxygen and has a blackout... I heard of 2 accounts from people who witnessed blackouts after a long O2 static (18 minutes) and a long O2 dynamics (300+) and they weren't nice!

Problem is nobody knows how dangerous this stuff really is... It's just freediving on steroids so to speak! You go over your limits because you use an 'enhancer'.

 

[Jee]

Thanks for the info.

Jorg - I've heard of medical studies about O2 breathholds (some Italian articles, perhaps). Gianluca Genoni took part in such a project - as I remember.

So what is the big difference? I agree, we don't know how the body functions in such extreme circumstances.
What I've seen: after 12-13 minutes the athlete's body starts to get heavy and sinks (was clearly visible at Akos's attempt, and at the trainings also - he didn't were wetsuit, at the attempt only the pants of the wetsuit). This indicates the CO2 gets more in the lungs - changing the lighter O2. Or is it the amount of gas changing in the lungs? Perhaps the second.. What does it mean? O2 is dissolved to the blood (and gets porcessed by the body), but not as much CO2 gets back to the lungs.

 

[DivingDane]

start with an extremelly low level of CO2 and a high level of O2.

so basically contractions are postponed because the body CO2 level needs to be built back up to a level where the CO2 is high enough to cause contractions. so the comfort stage of the DIve lasts much monger,

O2 levels are also higher not so much in Arterial blood (nearly saturated under normal breathing anyway) but bllod in the veins is much higher than normal in )2 so there is more O2 for the body to use.

i dont understand how the US of O2 for surface and VERY shallow dives (dynamics) would have any i'll effect. but then again i dont know enough about what is actually happening. from a gases point of view i would imaghine that at the end of an O2 dive that the levels of O2 and Co2 would be fairly similar to the levels found at the end of a Normal Max attempt on air???

DD

 

[Mullins]

No way, CO2 is much higher at the end of the dive if you're using O2. You can only blow off so much CO2 at the start, then consider how much you're producing in 20 minutes. Some divers have reported pretty strong CO2 narcosis, and that's at 1atm.

 

[DivingDane]

hmmm good call Dave, makes sense, didnt think of it that way. in my feeble understanding just figured that the break point in the dive would be at the same CO2 level, but i i guess when you start getting to such an elite level in static the discomfort from CO2 isnt a deciding factor anymore.

thanks for the correction though.

DD