A woman who can descend into the sea on one breath | Hacker News Reader

A woman who can descend into the sea on one breath

theguardian.com

20 pointsarkj13 comments

> Scientists once thought humans could swim to a maximum depth of 30m on a single breath. Amber Bourke has gone deeper than 70m and physiology alone can’t explain why

The Men’s record is over 100m.

The article makes it sound like she broke some ‘human’ record.

She didn’t.

Strange wording.

This really struck me as well, the mention of the men's record is a few paragraphs in. I stopped reading afterwards as it seemed misleading

Women's record is mentioned a bit earlier:

> Bourke reached a depth of 73 metres – a world record – ...

All the facts are correct and provided. But I agree, how they present facts looked weird to me too.

Women's CNF record currently is 73m (AIDA version, see https://www.aidainternational.org/WorldRecords/History/Const..., switch to Women). She is not WR holder, but current record is 73m and going deeper 70m without fins is close to it.

Here is her WR attempt (73m CNF, red card – probably the episode described in the article) https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2285865554973859

Agreed, and the article says some can even keep their breath for 11 minutes, but how she keeps breath for four minutes is a mystery?

11 minutes is STA – static breath-holding. Of course, without movements, you can hold breath much longer. Here are current AIDA STA WR numbers: https://www.aidainternational.org/WorldRecords/History/Stati... – legendary Natalia Molchanova still holds the record. If you don't know about Natalia, and her son Alexey (who currently holds several WR records, including 131 CWT mentioned in the article) I highly recommend reading about both of them. For example, here: https://www.gq.com/story/freediver-alexey-molchanov-profile.

Some elements of the Guardian audience require that sort of wording. They won't read the rest and find out she isn't a human record breaker.

I wonder if there are "Bajau Nomad" women who can dive for longer durations.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/bajau-sea...

Tsss. I can do that too. Just not very deep!

As every other competitive diver.

Can't wait for the article on the woman who can ski.

What's next, women riding bycicles?

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