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Thibault Guignes is the deepest man in France (FIM), having been down to -117m on a single breath. During training in Kalamata, he managed a -110m bifins dive (CWTB), with the camera rolling. Witness this amazing dive, coupled with Thibault's commentary on conditions, safety, and training, as well as his take on the descent and ascent.
"I performed this -110m dive, in Kalamata, in Greece, in 2019. The conditions are great for deep diving there. I remember a very enjoyable dive, despite the legs burning a bit at the end on the way up of course, but overall conditions were perfect. I was surrounded by a great safety team that I trust and my coach Nicholas Kouvaras, who gave me great confidence for this dive.
I tried mainly to focus on the technique during the dive because I was still quite new in bifins, kind of. When I did this dive I had done a bit of bifins down to -90m by myself in the Philippines before and in Greece we just did maybe 6 or 7 sessions to reach -110m so I still had some technical details that I needed to focus on because they were not completely automatic.
So I focused mostly on doing a beautiful duck dive to enter the water smoothly and then being very fluid on the way down, in the way I reduced my finning frequency to reach freefall between 30 and 35 meters. Then the challenge for me on those deep dives with bifins is to really relax on the way down. If I feel my relaxation is not perfect, I tend to anticipate a bit for the rest of the dive and it makes the way up much more difficult if I don't turn early because of this anticipation. So a lot of relaxation on the way down, deconcentrating, spreading my attention and everything at the same time to feel very relaxed and manage all the parameters of the freefall and the equalization at the same time.
Then, after the turn, the hard part begins physically, when the challenging one mentally for me is over, which was the way down. I try to start with a lot of power at the bottom, it gives me usually a good impulsion and then it's all about not giving up. The legs are burning, especially in the last 30 meters, the technique is deteriorating a little bit because of it but in the end, it was a very enjoyable dive".