Paris (AFP)

Transformed by apnea, Arthur Guérin-Boëri plays with the desire to breathe, he who can last more than seven minutes underwater.

Five-time world champion with multiple records, he embarked on a new feat: swimming 120 m under the ice, in one-degree water.

Thursday, in the waters of Lake Sonnanen in Finland, Arthur Guérin-Boëri will try to sign the longest distance ever achieved under the ice in dynamic apnea (swimming horizontally, not in depth) in the breaststroke, wearing a wetsuit 2 millimeters thick.

A new bet for the 36-year-old champion, who had already marked the history of ice freediving, which has become a discipline in its own right for the International Diving Federation (CMAS) since January.

In March 2017, he had completed 175 m in combination (5 mm thick) and with a monofin, in the same lake Sonnanen.

It was his first flows under the ice, after a career rich in swimming pools marked by the longest distance swam underwater (in a basin), that is to say 300 m.

"I was tired of seeing the tiles scrolling", tells AFP the freediver on his choice to switch under the ice today.

"There really is an incredible impact on the immune system, the quality of sleep, muscle recovery, the cardiovascular system, the quality of the skin. It's an extraordinary anti-inflammatory! But it also works against depression. , anxiety, on weight loss. When you put yourself in ice water regularly, you are really well ", pleads the Niçois, who discovered apnea late, at 26 years old.

- Therapy -

Guitarist and singer, his studies as a sound engineer did not convince him.

Driver of masters for the great Parisian hotels, he is interested in freediving by wanting to get back to sport seriously.

"It's a therapy sport, I was not good in my sneakers, in the life I was leading. I needed something to reframe myself, apnea arrived at that time. I accomplished myself in it. , success came fairly quickly, ”he emphasizes.

In particular, he learned to tame his urge to breathe.

"On my 300 m in the pool, I want to breathe a little before 75 m. This desire to breathe is like an embarrassment, a kind of unpleasant sensation that comes little by little, which rises in crescendo and which in the end becomes very difficult to bear. But it is not dangerous ".

The diver, with an impressive physique (1.97 m), mastered his desire to breathe during the 7 minutes and 28 seconds necessary to establish his personal best in static apnea (in the pool without moving).

He completed his 300 m distance in 4:30 minutes. He also has a breaststroke performance underwater over 221 m in 4:50 minutes.

- "Warrior" -

"I would say that the warriors of the desire to breathe are the horizontal freedivers who go the distance, the warriors of risk taking are the freedivers who do verticality at sea (in depth). When I go freediving under ice, I mix the two together. I really want to breathe and it's very risky too! "

On Thursday, he will therefore try to establish a performance, for which he has been preparing since last summer, by taking cold showers almost every day, by training all winter in immersion in cold waters in Chamonix, even even in the Canal de l'Ourcq in Paris.

Then, he will resume training for a new record, scheduled for March 2022 in Canada (near Montreal): swimming the longest distance under the ice in swimming trunks.

It projects over 105 m.

Before that, he plans to go swimming with the killer whales, he who also enjoys freediving in deep blue water.

"Like many people, I was won over by the film Le Grand Bleu but without telling myself that it would become my life. I was very marked by this character played by Jean-Marc Barr and who echoed my own personality a little. , a rather marginal guy, quite dreamy, who lost his mother very young, like me, with a very present father ", he confides.

© 2021 AFP