First it was a game, and from that game came a passion. From that passion, Valentina Cafolla became a world record holder in freediving.
When Cafolla dived with her friends in Croatia’s southern sea, Dalmatia, as a five-year-old, she discovered her love of underwater simply by holding competitions to see who could dive the deepest or find the best shell from the seabed.
As an eight-year-old, she went with her father, a former professional spearfisherman with the Croatian national team, and, much to her disappointment, was unable to reach 17 meters below the surface.
However, this failure was the start of something special.
“While Dad was spearfishing, I was trying to reach the depth of the rock he was diving to, which was 17 meters,” she says. ‘I was eight years old at the time and couldn’t reach it.
“Just as I was about to give up, he swam over to me and aimed his spear gun at something. It was an Amberjack.
Valentina Cafolla celebrates her world record dive of 140 meters at Lake Anterselva in February
Cafolla says she likes the tranquility of freediving, which allows her to be alone underwater.
‘I was so fascinated by its color and size that from then on every year I wanted to go two meters deeper than my age to discover the beauty that the sea has to offer.
So when I was eight I was diving to 10 meters, and when I was 10 years old I was freediving to 12 meters.
‘By the time I turned 14, I had reached a depth of 33 metres. When I was 16 years old, I reached a depth of 45 meters, the deepest point of the Rovinj archipelago.’
Although freediving seems simple in theory, in practice it is anything but. There are three components in which divers compete: depth, length and noise.
Both in depth and in length – also called dynamic – the participant determines a predetermined distance that he must reach for his attempt to count.
Static, however, is more about holding your breath underwater for as long as possible.
The road to the current world record – diving 140 meters under the ice of Lake Anterselva in Italy – was a long one.
After setting the record for a woman at 125 meters in 2017, Cafolla reveals she was too young to fully understand the magnitude of her achievement, admitting she was too distracted.
From there, the Croatian started finswimming – a more physical sport where you compete to be the fastest.
After five years, including time with the Croatian national team, Cafolla returned to freediving in 2022 with a new world record on her mind.
Cafolla trained for two years so that she was fully prepared for extreme conditions under the ice
In February earlier this year, the 27-year-old headed to Lake Anterselva to make history again.
‘I trained for this for two years, even though I had previously trained hard for the extreme conditions I would encounter under the ice (training in winter with a 3mm suit with holes, heavy gym training and difficult freediving sets), ‘ she says.
‘I arrived at the lake on February 19 to learn about the lack of oxygen on the lake and how the lake is 1600 meters above sea level.
‘The following days my team from Adriatic Maritime Services and Croatia Apnea prepared my competition field. On the 21st I got in the water and did my training.
My team, which included my father and my brothers, did a great job of not making me stressed before the event.
‘The night before the world record I went to bed early and started scrolling through Instagram. Then I discovered that on the same day a Japanese freediver had broken my previous world record from 2017 by 1 meter.
‘I was overwhelmed by this discovery. On one hand I was happy that someone had broken my record, but on the other hand a lot of doubts started to arise, some of which I didn’t even know I had.
‘As a result, I fell asleep at 2am and woke up quite early. Normally I listen to calm music before freediv competitions. This time, however, from Eminem Lose yourself And Not afraid were on repeat.
‘When I arrived on the pitch I was so calm that it finally caught me by surprise. I reached 450 feet and completed the surface protocol.
The next day I also set the first world record for dynamics in bivins (two fins) under ice (at 80 meters).’
Now that she has two world records to her name, no plans or goals have been set at the moment.
After missing the Freediving World Championships in April following a bout of chickenpox and an administrative problem with the Croatian federation for which Cafolla is still searching for answers, she is now happiest in the warm seas of Croatia.
“Right now I only dive in warm water and mostly in pools,” she says. ‘No (I don’t do it for the adrenaline rush), actually it’s completely the opposite. I just love the calm I feel when I freedive. You are all alone underwater and you can understand yourself better.’
