The Blue Angels of the AIDA World Championship in Corsica: interview with Francesco Corucci
The 33rd AIDA World Championship has just ended. It was held this year in Ajaccio (Corsica) and organized by the Cormorant Freediving club led by athletes Abdelatif Alouach and Chantal Marzin.
A competition conditioned by weather conditions that were at times complex, not in line with those normally found in this area. Thanks to a significant organizational effort, it was still possible to complete all the planned dives, which led to several national, continental and world records.
We had the opportunity to speak with one of the safety managers, Francesco Corucci (Safety Team Leader in this world championship), who gave us some information on how this crucial aspect was organized.
Safety Organization
Who is the “Safety”?
Apneapassion: «First of all, Francesco, what characteristics did you need to have to be a Safety in this World Championship?»
Francesco Corucci: «This year’s safety team consisted of 15 members, chosen through a selection process operated by AIDA International that saw the participation of over 70 candidates from every corner of the globe. The team members were chosen based on their apneistic solidity, their level of training in first aid and specific safety protocols for deep freediving, as well as their previous competitive experience.
Also, very important are the ability to keep a cool head under stress, the ability to work in a team, and resilience: the safety team, in fact, goes into the water every day for two weeks, with sessions that can last up to 6 hours. 20-30 dives a day – between 20 and 40 meters, for each team member – in which you cannot afford to turn early or miss an equalization. To this routine, which would already be very demanding in itself, you have to add the complexity, stress and effort of bringing athletes back to the surface and resuscitating them if they experience hypoxia at depth. All of this requires truly remarkable physical and mental solidity.»
AP: «It really looks physically demanding. How do you do it?»
FC: «Undoubtedly it is not easy to sustain these rhythms: injuries are very common. You need to be trained and have excellent apneistic solidity. The ability to know how to manage and take care of yourself is also very important, also because an injury inevitably ends up overloading the rest of the team.»
What Safety does?
AP: «Describe an in-depth rescue operation»
FC: «Imagine taking a dive between 30 and 40m. Once you reach the operational depth, you try to spot the athlete resurfacing from the depths, without success. Finally you see him, in the distance, slowly approaching. Wait about thirty seconds, finning on the spot. Finally he reaches you, and you escort him to the surface. He is in difficulty, and ends up losing consciousness. You promptly grab him and bring him back to the surface, and as soon as you resurface, practically without recovering from your dive, you must be cool and lucid enough to promptly begin the necessary resuscitation maneuvers.
This scenario, fortunately, does not happen often, but it could occur in each of the 20-30 daily assistance dives, for the entire duration of the race. In all of this, it is also worth noting that while the athlete is secured to the guide line and can, in the worst case, be brought back to the surface by activating a counterballast system, it is rather difficult to provide a safety system for the safeties themselves, other than to keep an eye on each other while taking care of the athlete in difficulty. In practice, at the moment, a problem at depth for one of the safeties would almost certainly have disastrous consequences.»
Logistics in the water
AP: «Specifically, in this World Cup, how did the Safeties organize their activities?»
FC: «This year’s team was made up of 8 senior members (experienced safety divers with several major competitions behind them), 4 juniors (with experience in minor competitions) and 3 provided by the local organizer. Dividing into two sub-teams, each led by a Safety Team Leader, the senior members supervise the two main competition areas, while the more junior profiles mainly deal with the warm-up cables and other related tasks (supervising the athletes in their warm-up, escorting them to the area where they will perform, supervising them during any subsequent decompression), gradually being exposed to the most challenging dives.
During each performance there are always at least three safeties to supervise the athlete: a surface safety and at least two deep safeties (-20m and -30m), to which a third is added (equipped with an underwater scooter, and operating at -40m) in the case of particularly deep or risky dives. When possible, an additional member is added on the surface, who acts as a wildcard in case one of the teammates encounters any problems. Each team implements a rotation of members between these positions according to a pyramid scheme, which has the aim of offering redundancy and optimizing physical and mental resources in the long and demanding sessions.»
Logistics out of the water
AP: «The Safeties team is however supported by other figures during the competition…»
FC: «Each performance is also monitored by a specialized medical team (which intervenes in all those cases in which the resuscitation performed by the safeties in the water is not sufficient) and the platform staff, who monitor the sonar (which locates the athlete in depth) and the images that come from an underwater drone (which provides video images in real time during the entire dive). Also, very important is the counterballast system, which serves to bring the athlete back to the surface in the event of problems that occur outside the operational depths of the safeties (over 40m).»
Mental and emotional aspects of the Safety
AP: «What can you tell us about the mental and emotional aspects of this role?»
FC: «This is an extremely fascinating aspect: I found unexpected assonances with professionals who work in completely different fields from ours, but who have high levels of stress and risk in common. From my experience, to work as a Safety at a high level you need a very particular type of concentration, a subtle balance between the state of alertness and that of relaxation.
You need to have eyes everywhere in and out of the water to identify and manage dangerous situations promptly, but sustaining a state of hyper-alertness for the entire necessary time would be almost impossible and very tiring (that’s what I felt at the beginning of my first world championship). We also need to remember that we are also freediving! As we know, you need to relax to dive deep, and underwater we must try to save as much energy as possible, both to manage long shifts in the water and to be in the best possible conditions in case of intervention.
The brain ends up filtering out all the superfluous stimuli, and I personally find myself in a state of “alert relaxation”, with a somewhat blurred and distributed attention, where the really important things stand out a bit like headlights in the fog. It is a very particular balance, not easy to sustain after so many hours in the water, especially in those sessions where the work becomes repetitive.
It is essential to lend a hand among companions to always remain lucid and on the ball. Also very important is to keep emotions under control before an important dive or after a demanding intervention. During the interventions we are almost robots, precise and detached, but when the intervention is finished or you review it on video, sometimes the emotional backlash arrives. In the team we share experiences that are sometimes very intense, and this is also why very strong bonds are formed between us.»
A daredevils sport?
AP: «Therefore, nothing can be left to chance.»
FC: «Absolutely not. The difficulty of our work and the impressive organization of the safety team reflect the crucial importance of safety in our sport, not only at a competitive level. Often portrayed as an extreme sport and for daredevils, freediving can actually be an extremely safe sport, provided that you have the appropriate knowledge and take adequate precautions for each operational context, whether it is a recreational dive, a fishing trip, or a world record.
Unfortunately, many of the accidents that we read about in the newspapers and that contribute to the bad reputation of our sport would be easily avoidable by knowing and respecting a few, simple rules, too often ignorant. How many fishermen actually fish in pairs and in turns? Safety is a crucial aspect for our sport, but even though it is on everyone’s lips, I think there is still a lot of work to be done at the freediving community level.»
Bio
Francesco Corucci, born in 1988 in Pisa and adopted by Livorno. A former engineer and university researcher, he put aside his technical and academic career in 2022 to dedicate himself to his freediving school, Deep Instinct Freediving, based in Livorno. He is a freediving and first aid instructor, instructor trainer and professional safety freediver. Member of the AIDA International safety and education commissions, in this world championship he held the role of safety team leader. From 2021 to today he has participated in all the major international competitions (World Championships, Vertical Blue). Francesco organizes freediving courses and training for all levels, in Livorno and Y-40. Among these, also professional courses to cover the role of safety diver. For more information: apnealivorno.it
