Guillaume Néry (born 11 July 1982) is a French free diver, who holds multiple world records in
freediving
Freediving, free-diving, free diving, breath-hold diving, or skin diving, is a mode of underwater diving that relies on breath-holding until resurfacing rather than the use of breathing apparatus such as scuba gear.
Besides the limits of breat ...
.
Sports career
Néry grew up in
Nice
Nice ( ; ) is a city in and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one millionJacques Mayol’s last world record, set in 1983 in the No Limits discipline (going down with a sled, and coming up with a balloon filled with air). In 2006, Néry reached -109m.
In 2007, his friend Loïc Leferme died during a training dive.
In July 2008, he broke the constant weight world record for the fourth time with -113 meters. Two months later, with the French freediving team (with Morgan Bourc'his and Christian Maldamé) he became Team World Champion in Egypt. It was the first gold medal for the French Team in a freediving world championship. In 2011, Néry won the constant weight AIDA freediving World Champion title, in Kalamata, Greece, the last title that was still missing in his career, with a dive to -117 meters.
On 8 September 2015, during a pre-competition leading up to the individual world championships in Cyprus, Néry broke his own personal best and set the second deepest dive in history to -126m, two meters away from the world record, held by his friend Alexey Molchanov. He then decided to tackle the world record two days later, on the last day of this pre-competition, 5 days before the start of the World Championships.
On 10 September 2015, Néry made an attempt to dive to -129m, but the judges and organizers made a mistake when setting the dive line, meaning that he actually dived down to -139m. He had a black-out a few meters from the surface and suffered a lung
barotrauma
Barotrauma is physical damage to body tissues caused by a difference in pressure between a gas space inside, or in contact with, the body and the surrounding gas or liquid. The initial damage is usually due to over-stretching the tissues in ...
. The accident forced him to pull out of the world championships, and he subsequently retired from competition.
Records
AIDA records of Guillaume Nery:
*2001: French record: -82 m / constant weight / Nice (France) - team vice world champion - Ibiza/ Spain
*2002: World record: -87 m / constant weight / Nice (France)
*2004: World record: -96 m / constant weight / Reunion Island (France)
*2006: World record: -109 m / constant weight / Nice (France) - 3rd at the team world championships - Hurghada (Egypt)
*2008: World record: -113 m / constant weight / Nice (France) - Team world champion - Sharm El Sheikh (Egypt)
*2009: 3rd at the individual world championships / constant weight without fins (-78m) - Bahamas 2010: French record: -115 m / constant weight / Bahamas
*2011: Individual world champion in constant weight and French record with a dive to -117m in Kalamata (Greece)
*2012: French record: -123 m / constant weight / Bahamas - team vice world champion - Nice (France)
*2013: French record: -125 m / constant weight / Kalamata (Greece)
*2015: French record: -126 m / constant weight / Cyprus
Filmmaking
In 2010 Néry and his ex- partner Julie Gautier directed a short film called ''Free Fall'', which was watched more than 30 million times. It showed him swimming into Dean's Blue Hole in
The Bahamas
The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic and island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean. It contains 97 per cent of the archipelago's land area and 88 per cent of ...
. Between 2011 and 2012, Néry and Gautier made another short film, ''Narcosis'', directed by Julie Gautier and released in 2014.
In 2014, during a trip to Polynesia, the couple started their third short film, ''Ocean Gravity'', at
Rangiroa
Rangiroa ( Tuamotuan for 'vast sky') or Te Kokōta (Cook Islands Māori
Cook Islands Māori is an Eastern Polynesian language that is the official language of the Cook Islands. Cook Islands Māori is closely related to, but distinct from ...
atoll. In 2016, Néry released another movie, ''Haven'', shot on The Haven, one of the biggest shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Genoa. The same year he appeared in '' Attention - A Life in Extremes'', a documentary about extreme sports.
Néry appeared (alongside Alice Modolo) in Naughty Boy and
Beyoncé
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter ( ; born September 4, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and businesswoman. With a career spanning over three decades, she has established herself as one of the most Cultural impact of Beyoncé, ...
's music video of the song " Runnin' (Lose It All)", released on 18 September 2015.
In 2019, Néry and Gautier released the short film ''One Breath Around the World''. Filming took place in multiple countries, including
Mexico
Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...
,
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
,
Finland
Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...
, the
Philippines
The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...
, and
Mauritius
Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Ag ...
Scuba diving
Scuba diving is a Diving mode, mode of underwater diving whereby divers use Scuba set, breathing equipment that is completely independent of a surface breathing gas supply, and therefore has a limited but variable endurance. The word ''scub ...