Umberto Pelizzari

Tricolor pride in the deep Blue

Umberto Pelizzari is widely considered among the best of all times. Pelizzari established world records in all outdoor freediving disciplines (Constant Weight, Variable Weight and No-Limits) that existed in the period when he competed.

It was very famous his rivalry with Cuban freediver, Pipin Ferreras, originally a close training friend. In No-Limits, Pelizzari and Ferreras led to the furthering of the limits of what was considered to be humanly possible at that time. Their rivalry is documented in the 2001 IMAX production Ocean Men: Extreme Dive.

During his career, he achieved 82 meters (262 feet) in Constant Weight, 131 meters (429 feet) in Variable Weight and 150 meters (492 feet) in No-Limits. His best performance in Static Apnea is 8’ and 19’56” (during medical tests) after breathing pure oxygen. Pelizzari has also founded Apnea Academy, the international freediving education association, and co-authored the widely used Manual of Freediving. Pelizzari is part of the Instructor staff of the famous Italian Special Intervention Group (G.I.S. Gruppo di Intervento Speciale dei Carabinieri). The Italian Ministry of the Interior has nominated him as a member of the Instructor staff to the divers of the Firefighters Corps. Pelizzari has been also working as a presenter and as guest in TV shows particularly focused on the environment.

www.umbertopelizzari.com

Marco Bardi

For love of the sea

Marco Bardi’s life of spearfishing has been marked by key moments. His is a story of resilience and devotion that led him to become one of the world’s top experts in this discipline. Falling in love with the sea became Marco’s reason for life. As a young man, Marco puts on his mask and fins and goes into the water. In the blue of the sea, he witnesses the darting of potential prey that triggers his natural instinct for hunting and obtaining food.

Marco had many new experience’s, like the Com.sub.in and also including the meeting of Andrea Berardinone, Alessandro Rispoli and Renzo Mazzarri. Marco ended up spending many days at sea continously learning new things. One of Berardinone’s teachings, To achieve results you will be forced to give more importance to the technique than to the rest” this becomes a mantra for Marco, in fact, attention to detail becomes his trademark. A distinctive element with which it has made a fundamental contribution to fishermen all over the world.

If Marco wasn’t busy enough, he was also a spearfishing competitor with many national and international successes. Due to an accident in 2000, Marco retired from competitions. Since then he has continued to refine the equipment used for apnea and spearfishing with a manic attention to detail. Ever determined, Marco also has several books on apnea spearfishing as well as using all his experience to design accessories that are produced by OMER. A successful line that most spearfisherman have heard of and are able to appreciate.

www.marcobardi.com