Competitive freediving allows both novice and experienced freedivers the opportunity to test their skills in an organized and safety conscious environment. Competition is a fun and great way to meet fellow freedivers, gain tips and insight into the sport, and participate in an active sport while challenging yourself.
Competitive freediving is officiated by judges. The judges are responsible for making sure that all rules of the competition and safety are fulfilled and to validate the athlete’s performance according to the rules.
Competitive freediving is divided into eight categories and can be viewed as different methods to test an individual’s abilities with regards to time, depth and/or distance on one breath. The categories of competitive freediving are as follows:
Competitions do not include variable ballast or no limits dives but are instead limited to the self-powered disciplines. World and national records, however, include all disciplines.
USA Freediving actively hosts and sanctions events in competitive freediving for its members and serves as the international representative of competitive freediving in the United States (USA Freediving is the U.S. national representative of the International Association for the Development of Freediving, AIDA). As such, USA Freediving is responsible for authorization of domestic competitions, national records, selection of the USA Freediving Team, and official communication with AIDA and the international competitive freediving community. USA Freediving actively supports all apnea activities, but the fore-mentioned activities relating to competition is a direct responsibility of USA Freediving.
Competitive freediving is sanctioned internationally by AIDA. AIDA was created to provide organized structure for world records and competitions, is responsible for authorization and validation of all world records, sanctions the world championships of freediving and provides the rules that provide the foundation for the nationals that makeup the federation. AIDA is responsible for training and educating all international judges.