Amber Fillary Dives into New Record
Amber Fillary Achieves New World Record
It’s 29th February 2020, and South African Amber Fillary dips her toe into the icy water of Lake Oppsjø near Oslo, Norway, before jumping in. Wearing a bikini, a swimming cap and goggles – an accessory she has to wear to protect her eyes from freezing – she takes a breath and dives down. Slowly she glides under the ice, past the safety holes that have been cut into it every 10 meters until she reaches the 70 meter mark, and calmly floats to the surface. She breaks the surface to applause and shouts of celebration – she has just broken a new world record for the longest horizontal free dive under the ice without fins, a wet suit or a weight belt.
Fillary has been a swimmer for most of her life. In her first year of high school, she received Western Province colours for swimming and competed seriously for several years. She holds two national women’s freediving pool records for static breath-hold at six minutes and distance breath-hold with no fins at 134 m.
THE CALL OF THE COLD
Her first experiences with cold water swimming were in her early twenties when she moved to England and landed a job as a lifeguard at a London swimming pool. It was a double Olympic-size pool that was open year-round. “It was kind of mad,” she recounts. “There was a swimming club that would swim in the water in winter. The guys would swim naked but would wear a swimming cap because most of your body heat escapes from your head. The girls swam in swimming costumes. I wanted to do it as well, so I did.”
In winter, she would run to Hyde Park, in central London, in a T-shirt and then go swimming in Serpentine Lake. “I remember running through ice. It’s the best way to get high without drugs. If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you feel the best,” she says.
ICE ATTRACTION
The first time Hillary dove under ice, she was scared. “It’s one breath, and you can’t get out of the water until you find a hole in the ice. But you’re part of the element. You have to surrender to nature because it’s more powerful than you. You can’t fight, or else you’re screwed. Diving under the ice is beautiful. It’s fresh water, so the visibility is good. It’s cold, so the water is slow. The light comes in through the ice, and it’s quite magical. It’s a place to go and look within. You really have to be within yourself and in tune with your body because you’re going against that will to breathe. But then I switch off my brain and think how the water is looking after me, how I am one with it.”
On the day Fillary broke the women’s record (previously held by Johanna Nordblad), she set her sights on breaking the Men’s Guinness World Record, too… although she didn’t expect a pandemic to thwart her chances.
PUTTING IN THE POOL TIME
However, this year, she has started training again in earnest with her swimming coach Robert Allen Stubbs, for her 2022 attempt. “I’ve known her for a long time, but I’ve only coached her for three years,” says Stubbs. “The training is a structured programme to get her physically fit. In the first two weeks, we focus on breath-hold and swimming 50 metres of freestyle on the surface. In the third week, she swims an underwater stroke, and by the fourth and fifth weeks, she’s ready. The breath-hold is her job, and she does it perfectly. She swims 115 m in one breath in an underwater breaststroke effortlessly. She’s ready for it.”
Stubbs changes the programme frequently so that it doesn’t get frustrating for Fillary. He has also helped her adapt her stroke as technique has a significant role to play. While access to Europe has been difficult, Fillary will travel to Germany to continue her training in ice lakes to acclimatise to the cold.
Fillary is not only an international record-breaker; she’s a rule breaker. She doesn’t fit the typical free diving mould because she smokes, drinks coffee, doesn’t eat as she should and has a history of alcohol addiction. She is an anomaly, which is precisely what makes her a fascinating, athletic force to behold.
“A lot of the coaches are scared of coaching Amber because she’s gung-ho. At national championship events, it takes a 20-minute preparation on the side of the pool for freediving competitors. Amber arrives, looks at you and gets into the water. She’s in the water for 15 seconds, takes three or four little breaths, then one big breath and off into the water she goes,” says Stubbs.
Having said that, there is a lot more control in her diving now. With Stubbs’ training, Fillary has lowered her heart rate. This is crucial for oxygen efficiency because if she runs out of air, she can pass out. “I believe we’ve lowered her heart rate. I don’t measure it, she doesn’t swim with a heart rate monitor, but I’ve never seen her go into distress,” says Stubbs.
It’s a different scenario under ice, though, and there’s paranoia around that. For many ice divers, it’s a mad dash to get to the end. Currently, Fillary swims 100 m
with one breath in two minutes and a few seconds. The glide technique she executes and the calmness she achieves is ideal because there is no room for panic under the ice.
JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG
In addition to the ice and the freezing temperatures, she has to attempt the world record without weights which makes buoyancy a factor. “She is always compensating for the buoyancy. With a weight, it’s easy. Not having a weight means she has to blow out a lot of air when she’s submerging, so she’s probably only got half a lungful to swim with. She has such a strong mind that she controls her heart rate and stroke rhythm, although we had to train her in that count. Her timing is now almost perfect, and she can even go further if she wants to,” says Stubbs.
As Fillary surfaced from her world record attempt, she didn’t do the usual safety checks, like giving the okay sign; instead, she started talking. “I don’t know how she has the air to talk when she comes up. Other divers give the okay sign and take a few breaths. She responds immediately is bright-eyed and bushytailed. She amazes me,” says Stubbs.