After the conclusion of the Eudi Show, the diving show in Bologna, we met up with Umberto Pelizzari, one of the great champion of deep seas freediving. Throughout his long career, Umberto broke a number of world records and was one of the sides in the compelling long distance battle with another champion of the time, Francisco Ferras Pipin from Cuba. When the two were still competing, it was like a recreation of the competition between Bartali and Coppi. And, within free diving, the same antagonism which arose between the two champions, Jacques Mayol and Enzo Maiorca.

You have just come from meeting Pipin during the Eudi Show. How did it go? At one point, did sparks fly between you two?

It all went well. Meeting with the public was around two hours and there were hundreds of fans. We alternated sharing our experience, some which we had never shared before, stories of adventures, anecdotes and it was wonderful to see so much interest in deep sea diving. We were even able to answer some questions from the public.

It seems you shared the story about a prank Pipin pulled in Cuba. What happened?

It’s true. In 1987 we were at Cayo Largo for Pipin’s world record in constant weight apnea, when he reached -69 metres. But wait, you were there, don’t you remember?

It’s true, I was there. I took pictures of you together, but I don’t know the story.

Right, well, I will tell you. One day he took me fishing far from shore, in the ocean. At a certain point he said: ‘Look, I’m going to leave you hare a moment because i want to check out another area. You keep fishing, you have the dive float anyway.’ And he left me there alone, with no coast or islands in sight. Honestly, after a while I started to get worried. After 40 long minutes, he finally cam back to get me on his dinghy and told me he had found some grouper and had lost track of time. Obviously, the story made the public laugh.

I remember there was some tension between you when you broke a record only a few days after he had established it. Is that true?

You know, the truth is, we were competitive but it was always friendly and only in the “No Limits”. We wouldn’t challenge each other in other specialisations. I would like to add that our competitiveness helped promote professional freediving. Now we are in harmony and have realised that, even though it wasn’t done on purpose, we were each very important for the other.

Besides the beautiful and strong Alessia Zecchini, who is still breaking world records, over the last few years, professional freediving has been a lot less visible in the media. Do you think part of it might be the constant breaking of world records in the different specialisations? With fin, without fins, constant, variable, no limits, single fin, two fins, etc?

Let’s say that certainly, we enjoyed the golden age of freediving, even from the point of view of communication. Even today there are some athletes that are like tanks. They are strong, a lot stronger than me and Pipin. But, unfortunately, and I say this with sincerity, they can’t get their names out there, to talk about their exploits, because probably, freediving, for many reasons, isn’t as spectacular as it was before. It is clear that having so many specialisations, so many disciplines, does not help, especially in a sport that isn’t so popular. Either you are a freediver, or you have no idea what the different specialisations are.

Speaking of other champions, who do you think is strong at the moment?

Davide Carrera is doing well. At the age of 50 hi dived 130 metres, and even with that he didn’t have the publicity on TV that he should have had. No hype. One of the reasons I think is that companies don’t spend as much, they don’t invest in advertising for diving. Even Sector has left.

By Gianni Risso.