Sunday the 18th of July changed life for Alice Modolo. On the 5th day of Vertical Blue 2021 the former dentist became an important part of history – not only did she set the 10th World Record achieved at the #VB2021 competition, but she also accomplished a life-long goal and became the very first French woman to forge a World Record. Modolo had picture perfect form as she descended and then returned a full 95m under constant weight in bi-fins. Alice’s 95m CWTBF dive is not only an historic world record it is in fact her personal best – which as fate would have it was gleaned on a world stage.
“I am so very happy to be the first French woman to realize a world record!” exclaimed the blonde freediver, “In France, it has always been all about the boys, but perhaps now they will realize that the women are also strong, beautiful divers who have so much to contribute – they can learn quite a lot from us. I am so proud of all that the ladies have achieved at #VB2021 – it is an honor to follow in the footsteps of Alenka Artnik who held this bi-fins world record before me.”
Alice Modolo recently decided to step away from her profession as a dentist to focus exclusively on her training and freediving, and it looks like that decision has paid off.
In addition to Alice’s WR, another 5 national records were set on Sunday including Kehan Pan of China with 72m CWT, Pepe Salcedo of Mexico with 96m FIM (who made an extraordinary and perhaps a bit risky move when he grabbed his tag from the bottom plate with his mouth!), Yun- Chieh “Jay” Ku of Taiwan with 90m CWTBF, Juani Valdivia of Peru with 67 CWT, and the last dive of the day was completed by Talya Davidoff of South Africa 45m CNF.
Photo Credits: Daan Verhoeven