– GIANLUCAGENONI –
world record holder in deep freediving
Personal data:
Gianluca Genoni born: Galliate 05/07/1968
residence: Busto Arsizio
height: 1,92 m.
weight: 92 kg.
lung capacity: over 9 liters
Vita:
Gianluca Genoni's career as an athlete began at the age of five with his first swimming lessons and his first competitive competitions.
His competitive career culminated in 1987 with a superb fifth place at the Italian swimming championships in the 200m breaststroke.
When he started college, he abandoned his competitive swimming career, though he remained connected to the swimming community, switching to teaching. It was during this period that, thanks to the long periods spent in the pool, free from the pressure of training, Gianluca discovered freediving, along with a group of friends and colleagues who frequented the swimming center.
“I immediately noticed that I had more numbers than my companions, just think that the first freedive I did lasted more than three minutes”
Then his military service in the Navy in La Spezia was decisive in turning his career as a sportsman, because it brought Gianluca even closer to the sea, since almost every day he had the opportunity to go out to sea to train in his new passion, freediving.
The first record came on August 17, 1996, in Syracuse, the long-time home of Enzo Maiorca's historic freediving records; Gianluca set a new record for regulated variable weight freediving with a descent to -106 meters.
This record would be improved by him 8 times in 8 years, making him the undisputed king of this discipline.
1997 4 October Arbatax – Sardinia -120 m.
1998 2 October P. Ottiolu-Sardinia -121 mt.
1999 30 September P. Ottiolu-Sardinia -122 mt.
2000 8 October P. Ottiolu-Sardinia -123 mt.
2000 12 October P. Ottiolu-Sardinia -125 mt.
2001 22 September Rapallo – Genoa -126 m.
2002 29 September Moneglia – Genoa -132 m.
2004 October 2 Chiavari – Genoa -133 m
Alongside these records he also boasts the victory of a World Freediving Team Championship in 1998, 21-27 June in S.Teresa di G.- Sardinia
Not only the discipline of the regulated variable set-up but also the absolute variable are part of the Palmares of Gianluca Genoni who achieved two world records also in this discipline
1998 3 October P. Ottiolu-Sardinia -135 mt.
1999 2 October P. Ottiolu-Sardinia -138 mt.
Since 2002, Gianluca Genoni has taken a break from competitive freediving record-breaking, partly because there are no rivals to beat in this discipline, and has dedicated himself to developing a series of medical-scientific studies related to freediving in collaboration with the University of Varese and the CNR. These studies have included:
freediving under the ice at very high altitude (3000 m), the first experiment in the world, so extreme, on 22 March 2002 in Breuil-Cervinia, Cime Bianche area,
the oxygen dive at 0 m above sea level which took place in a swimming pool in Busto Arsizio on 10 May 2002, which saw Gianluca extend his apnea to 12' 34"
diving at 5.000 meters in the lake at the foot of Everest
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