On the 31st July, 2013 at 10.05pm Rebecca Coales broke the current female DNF record at the Total Fitness centre in Walkden, North Manchester. For those new to Freediving, DNF is swimming as far as you can horizontally in a swimming pool without the aid of fins.
The record had previously been held continuously, by Liv Philip, since 2007. Rebecca with a very comfortable dive beat the 116m that was on the board, and pushed the distance to 120m, which is well within her Personal best (PB), in a dive time of 2:24 minutes.
Rebecca is a founder member of the Bristol No Tanx Freedivers group where she trains with friends. She was a relative newcomer to the competition circuit, only starting to explore her potential in the last 6 months starting with a no-fins clinic, and mono fin clinic with Steve Millard of the Apneists UK group learn2freedive , based in the North of the UK. Recently she earned the right to represent her country in the World Freediving Pool Championships and with this new record it has placed her firmly on the map. Rebecca runs the Yoga website and courses which is the perfect cross training for Freedivers.
The video and a short story of the dive can be found here.
Record attempts can be organised for those wishing to gain National records in the UK. Thanks to the dream team who came and supported the event.
Athlete: Rebecca Coales
Organiser: Steve Millard
Judge: Gary Lowe
Judge: David Tranfield
Judges Assistant: Fiona Cahill
Safety Diver: James Cluskey
Safety Diver: Steve Millard
Videographer / Photographer: Sean Peters http://www.sppv.net/
Surface Coach: John Moorcroft
Medic: Dr P. Taylor
Thank you to the management and staff of Total Fitness Walkden for hosting the event and their continued support of UK Freediving athletes and students. Please visit here for more details to join the gym.