DATELINE: 18th June 2001

FREEDIVE RECORDS
May was a busy month for competitive freedivers, with record attempts in the Caribbean, Fort Lauderdale and Africa.
Tanya Streeter set two new free-diving world records off the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe.
First she descended to 70m in the Free Immersion discipline, in which you haul yourself down a line and back up by hand. Then she extended her Constant Weight seawater world record by 3m to set a new mark of 70m for women. In this category, divers fin down and back up with their chosen weight.
In Guadeloupe, Audrey Mestre-Ferreras plunged off Fort Lauderdale to extend her No Limits women's world record by 5m to 130m, using a sled running on a vinyl-coated steel cable. Her dive was overseen by both organising freediving bodies, the IAFD and AIDA.
AIDA has yet to officially ratify Streeter's and Mestre-Ferreras's records, subject to results of drugs tests that both women underwent during their record dive programmes. The tests were the first of a new scheme, administered under International Olympic Committee guidelines, to regularly dope-test freedivers who attempt records or take part in major championships.
While in Fort Lauderdale, Audrey teamed up with her husband Pipin Ferreras, under the IAFD banner, to set a self-styled Mixed Tandem record of 100m, for a sledded man and woman.
Completing a busy May for free-divers, South African Trevor Hutton broke the AIDA freshwater Free Immersion record by 1m with a dive to 66m at Lake Guinas in Namibia.

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