Freediver pushes his body to the limits

For almost 30 minutes Vitomir Maricic didn’t take a breath. Face-down in a pool, surrounded by anxious onlookers, the Croatian freediver fought spasming pain to redefine what doctors thought was possible.

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When he finally surfaced, he had smashed the previous Guinness World Record for the longest breath-hold underwater by nearly five minutes.

But even with the help of pure oxygen before the attempt, it had pushed him to the limit.

“Everything was difficult, just overwhelming,” Maricic, 40, said, reflecting on the record-breaking day on 14 June this year.

“When I dive, I completely disconnect from everything, as if I’m not even there.

“This time, I struggled mentally and halfway through I thought about quitting.”