Chronicle of a foretold death
What a newspaper like LIBERATION
is capable of writing
October 19, 2002
Sometimes one wonders how extreme sports, with all the nonsense they involve, can continue to thrive. One might have initially thought that television, which is always looking for sensational images, was the only culprit. Well, no. The written press also has its share of responsibility. Here is an article that a reader sent me, which, according to him, appeared in Libération. It is a portrait of Loïc Leferme, a freediving record holder. The article has the following reference:
Article by Luc Le Vaillant, published in Libération on October 18, 2002
Loïc Leferme in 7 dates
August 28, 1970
Born in Malo-les-Bains (North).
1980
Parents' divorce, moving to the heights of Nice.
1986
Release of "The Big Blue".
1990
Discovery of freediving at the university in Nice.
1999
Devotes himself to freediving professionally.
August 18, 2001
World record in deep freediving (variable weight "no limit"): -154 meters at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.
October 18, 2002
Attempt at a new record (-162 meters)
in Nice
Recorde of a "no limit" dive on October 20, 2002. Dedicated to the young Frenchwoman, Audrey Mestre, who died trying to reach 170 meters.
It's not sport, it's a stunt. In the end, it's quite comparable to wanting to jump off a bus on a motorcycle. It's only spectacular. One could just as well put people in a chamber and pressurize them to 18 bars in one minute and thirty seconds, then depressurize them. Physiologically, the effects would be the same. But the spectacular, fantasy aspect, so well portrayed in The Big Blue, would be missing. Imagine someone being pressurized to 21 bars in two minutes, then depressurized. He comes out saying, "The wall of two hundred meters has been crossed!"
Sad. The culprits are not the people who do these things, but those who pay for them, who sell these images to a crowd hungry for them, the same crowd that used to go watch gladiators die in the arenas two thousand years ago. The taste for blood, the fascination with death.
- So young, after all....
It reminds me of my first paragliding flights in 1974. At the time, people came to stand in front of the runways with a camera in hand "just in case he crashed". I will never forget those sick looks.
We had a friend who also flew on a "Manta" (at that time it was the only available machine). The TV crew came to film him. At that time, this sport was just starting. But the wind was against them. The TV team waited.
- So, what are you doing? We don't have all day.
Jacques was looking at the flag, which was not properly oriented. He finally said to himself, "If I run very fast, maybe I'll be able to take off."
He died. The cameraman filmed the fall. The director sold the images and moved on to another story.
Loïc Leferme :
High, low, fertile. He gets dizzy. He dives the deepest. The verticality of New York buildings paralyzes him. He descends, attached to his lead line, into the depths of the seas. He has to hold on to a friend's arm to have confidence when facing overhangs. He breathes best in the depths, his ribcage adapting to the 17 kg of pressure that acts at the bottom. He says: "I have a blue fear of the void." He also says: "At sea, depth is protective." Loïc Leferme, 32, with a look similar to Patrick Edlinger, the climber, will descend this weekend into the depths of the beautiful blue. He will attempt to reclaim his world record. Deep freediving, "no limit", descent with a line, ascent with an inflatable balloon. Three minutes holding his breath, which is not much, in "static," he can hold double. The difficulty is to adapt the body quickly to this compressed world. Take care of the ears, the lungs, and above all keep control of oneself, know when to give up, when to persist. A yogi and a decision-maker. Leferme had achieved -154 meters last year. Tania Streeter, an American, reached -160 meters. Audrey Mestre, a Frenchwoman, married to the Cuban Pipin, one of the big shots in the field, died trying for -170 meters. Leferme - who says of her: "She was gentle, calm... It will make me stay alert" - should wisely stop at -162 meters.
We are in Nice. Bright sun, the Nautic Eagle barracks, his diving club, strong men in swimsuits and flip-flops fiddling with compressors and regulators. Leferme arrives very discreetly, parks his mountain bike, and talks with the slowness of people who are so detached from themselves that they don't need to harpoon their interlocutor. Long, blond hair, a bit Ophelia, a bit mermaid, green eyes like a ray, but with a sharp and close look that makes one think of Bjorn Borg hitting a tennis ball. He is 1.77 m tall and weighs 67 kg. He is slim and agile. Discipline hates big, roaring arms, piratical weightlifters, which is why women succeed in it. Leferme says: "You have to be physically and mentally flexible. Don't behave like a concrete block, otherwise you break. You have to adapt to the environment. Like an anthropologist."
In the winter, this son of a swimming coach does laps in his favorite element. And as summer comes, he works to lose the tone he gained. He says: "I'm melting. If you're too muscular, you don't pass." Stretching, relaxation, osteopathy, more traditional apnea competitions, and training dives to test limits.
Leferme grew up in Dunkirk. He never learned to swim, he always knew how. He was two months old, his mother would let him go into the big pool. He was two or three years old, he would dive two or three meters to retrieve his little toy cars. But the fish-child always refused the family legacy. He would not be Mark Spitz or Ian Thorpe. Suspicion towards competition, inclination towards team sports. The narrowness of heated pools and water lines, the need for nature, for strangeness.
Parents' divorce. They are four children, eventually becoming seven siblings. His mother moves to the heights of Nice. She becomes a painter. The stepfather is English, aristocratic and a bit of a dandy. A baba-eco, spiritual and disconnected atmosphere. Cutting wood to heat, being blocked by snow in winter, often eating potatoes, taking care of five dogs. He says: "We sometimes lived very marginally." Mixed memories, no desire to reproduce that. He lives with a Vietnamese dance teacher "who has her feet on the ground." They have a child, soon two. He studied to be a gym teacher, didn't want to teach. To make ends meet, he was long-time a dorm supervisor. There, he started his diving club, created two youth jobs, and still can't afford to pay. For some time now, he has been trying to live off freediving, as a professional athlete, thinking only of that. Not easy, the Big Blue wave is fifteen years old. Sponsors are not coming in. He gives motivational seminars in companies, works on underwater images that will popularize his activity. And the human who dives the deepest in the world, this reasonable mutant exploring unknown spaces, earns just 1,500 euros a month. Light-years away from the most limited footballer...
He doesn't mind. He is proud to place his hand where no human foot has ever been... He feels part of the family of discoverers, explorers. He is fascinated by...