THE FREEDIVE CAFÉ
LONG-FORM INTERVIEWS WITH THE WORLD'S FREEDIVERS
At The Freedive Café, Donny sits down with freedivers great and small.
The Freedive cafe is the long-form interview podcast that explores the backstories, the training, the challenges and the combined wisdom and personal philosophies of the world’s freedivers.
More than 170 long-form interviews recorded, and still counting!
THE WORLD’S FREEDIVING PODCAST
The full Freedive Café Podcast archive can also be found at www.freedivecafe.com.
The Freedive Café Podcast is available on all good podcast players!
#177 | Olavi Paananen | Under Ice
Olavi Paananen is a Finnish entrepreneur who recently broke the CMAS World Record for freediving under ice, without a wetsuit.
#176 | Nejc & Nikos | Kalamata Freedivers
Kalamata Freedivers is a freediving school and training facility located in Kalamata Greece, run by Nejc Likar and Nikos Gkagkanis.
#175 | William Trubridge | Blue Pearl
William Trubridge is one of the most celebrated freedivers of all time, achieving multiple world records, winning multiple world championships and diving 102m in CNF (No Fins).
#174 | Jack Webb | Jungle Freediver
Jack Webb is an up and coming deep freediver from Far North Queensland in Australia. He recently dived 113m in competition in Dominica.
#173 | Martin McPhilimey | Breath Science
Martin McPhilimey is a respiratory and sleep scientist by background and the founder of The School of Breath Science.
#172 | Pedro Tapia | The Inner Dive
Pedro Tapia is a Mexican freediving athlete and the deepest unassisted freediver in the Americas, diving almost 120m with the monofin and 88m in No Fins.
#171 | Lisa Davidsson | The Surf Psychologist
Lisa Davidsson is a psychologist and hypnotherapist from Sweden, now based in Bali. Known as the surf psychologist, Lisa works with clients from all over the world guiding them through their psychological challenges with therapy and mental training, especially in the context of surfing and being in the water.
#170 | Nataliia Zharkova | Resurgence
Nataliia Zharkova is a Ukrainian competitive freediver who this year (2025), returned to the competition scene after a four year break and won overall silver in the CMAS World Championships, diving deeper than 100m in three disciplines.
#169 | Zsófia Törőcsik | Phenom
Zsófia Törőcsik is a Hungarian freediving athlete who in 2025 became the first female freediving athlete to dive a distance of 300m in the pool and in the same year won gold at the AIDA Depth World Championships; her first ever depth competition.
#168 | Anna-Karina Schmitt | Sweet Water
Anna-Karina Schmitt is a German freediver based in Switzerland. Today we talk about the technicalities of diving in lakes and the challenges of living with multiple sclerosis and how freediving inspires her healthy lifestyle.
#166 | Marco Puliafito | Blue World Freediving
Marco Puliafito is from Sicily, Italy. He left an 18 year career at Pfizer pharmaceutical company to open Italy’s first dedicated freediving training centre, Blue World Freediving.
#165 | Jeroen MG Van Haudt | Freediving Medic
Jeroen van Haudt is from Belgium. He is a passionate health-care provider working as an intensive care unit nurse, with a love for technical innovation, teaching and diving, and a former business owner in composites resins 3D-shaping for the nautical and entertainment industry.
Jeroen is perhaps best known to us in the freediving community in his role as freediving medic in some of the biggest freediving competitions in the world.
Today’s discussion is a wide-ranging and thorough exploration of freediving medical safety.
#164 | Tea Košnjek | Deep Strength
Tea Košnjek is a kinesiologist and a strength & conditioning coach working with Olympic-level swimmers and freedivers around the world.
#163 | Huang Hua Yang | Spirit of Depth
Huang Hua Yang (黃華揚) is a former farmer and the deepest freediving athlete from the beautiful country of Taiwan. One of the deepest men in the world, he shares his freediving story and philosophy with us.
#162 | David Mellor | No Limits
David Mellor is an English freediver who started freediving at 49 years old and achieved the incredible goal of freediving to 100 metres, in competition, at the age of 60 years old.
#161 | Marco Nones | Only One Apnea
Marco Nones is one of the most influential persons in the development of freediving on Egypt’s Red Sea and a coach to some of the best freedivers in the world.
#160 | Enchante Gallardo | Rise and Shine
Enchante Gallardo is a Hawaii born freediving athlete who has recently surpassed the 100m depth.
#159 | Heike Schwerdtner | Static World Record
Heike Schwerdtner is a trainer of nurses from Germany and also the first woman to beat Natalia Molchanova’s static apnea world record. A record that has stood for eleven years.
#158 | Lotta Ericson | Freedive Dahab
Lotta Ericson is co-founder, owner and manager of Freedive Dahab, the longest established freediving centre in Dahab, Egypt. She has a deep history in freediving as a competitive athlete and developer of the freediving education systems.
#157 | Samo Jeranko | Coaching Deep Dive
Samo Jeranko is an elite freediver and top-level coach to freediving athletes, based in Slovenia. In this episode we take a deep dive into the coaching and training strategies he employs for his clients and himself.
Samo first appeared on Episode #87 of the podcast.
LOST EPISODE #2 | Johnny Sunnex
Originally produced between 2019 and 2021, the Lost Episodes of The Freedive Cafe were originally released as exclusive content for Patreon subscribers, then lost to time. Recently unearthed in the Sinai desert, I can now deliver them for your listening pleasure!
This episode with Johnny was originally released on Patreon in July 2020.
To become a supporter of the podcast through Patreon visit:
https://www.patreon.com/freedivecafe
Johnny also appeared on Episode #68
#156 | Stéphane Tourreau | Metre by Metre
Stéphane Tourreau started diving at the age of ten around the waters of Corsica. Over the course of 27 years he has risen to the top of his game as a professional freediving athlete. He has been a member of the French national team since he was 24 and continues to perform at the highest level for his country and as an individual.
Stéphane first appeared on Episode #5 of the podcast.
#155 |Erika Schagatay | Science Deep Dive
Erika Schagatay PhD grew up in northern Sweden, far from the sea but eventually went to Lund University in southern Sweden to study biology, focusing on physiology and marine biology. She completed her PhD in 1996 on the human diving response.
She started her own research group in 2001 at Mid Sweden University where she has been a professor since 2007.
She has also been very active developing freediving in Sweden and was part of the group that started competition freediving within the Swedish Sport Diving Federation.
She first appeared on Episode #42 of the podcast.
#154 | Alenka Artnik | Purpose & Clarity
Alenka Artnik is the deepest female freediver in the world. Originating from Slovenia, she transformed her life and broke free of her old bonds to pursue this amazing sport and its deeper dimensions.
LOST EPISODE #1 | Davide Carrera
Davide Carrera returns to the show!
Originally produced between 2019 and 2021, the Lost Episodes of The Freedive Cafe were originally released as exclusive content for Patreon subscribers, then lost to time. Recently unearthed in the Sinai desert, I can now deliver them for your listening pleasure!
This episode with Davide was originally released on Patreon in October 2020.
To become a supporter of the podcast through Patreon visit:
https://www.patreon.com/freedivecafe
Davide also appeared on Episodes #22 and #151
#153 | Kateryna Sadurska | Depth and Strength
Kateryna Sadurska is a world record holding freediving athlete from Ukraine. Kate joined me at The Little Blue in Dahab to discuss her amazing 2023, how she trained for those huge dives and how her philosophy of freediving is evolving.
#152 | Frank Pernett | Freediving Science & Physiology
Frank Pernett is originally from Colombia. He has been freediving his whole life and been involved in the deep freediving and freediving competition scenes for many years. He is currently based in Sweden where he is working towards his PhD under the watchful eye of freediving scientist Erika Schagatay.
#151 | Davide Carrera | Become Free
Davide Carrera was born in Turin in Italy and began freediving as a child during his summers spent in Leguria.
He has was part of the World Championship winning teams of 1996 and 2001 and established a FIM world record shortly after when he dove to 91m.
He moved away from the competitive sphere in the end and went on to study yoga extensively, and he integrates that into his freediving, and it was his tale of solitary wandering across the mediterranean in his 28 foot trimaran that inspired my first interest in Davide.
We first spoke 5 years ago on episode 22 of the freedive cafe podcast, now we meet, face t face in Dahab, to discuss his recent return to the very top tier of the freediving competitive scene and what it takes to dive 130m deep.
Davide first appeared on Episode #22
#1| Tim Oehmigen
Tim Oehmigen began freediving in 2012 and has been competing since 2014. After his studies he decided to spend some time on freediving training to see where it could take him. Freediving and especially freediving competition is his passion. For Tim, the feeling during deep dives and long free falls is priceless. The ability to defeat recurrent fears by building the right mindset before a dive is the most challenging thing he has ever done.
He is an AIDA Master Instructor and in the past year has achieved four national records for Germany. He currently holds the German record in CWT, diving to 93m, and in CNF, diving to 67m.
