The upcoming documentary Hold Your Breath: The Ice Dive, directed by Ian Derry, will follow Johanna Nordblad, a freediver from Finland, as she attempts to break the world record for distance traveled beneath cold ice with just one breath. The documentary will be released exclusively on Netflix on May 3, 2022.
Johanna’s voyage of swimming 103 meters beneath 60 cm of ice is well worth the wait, concentrating on themes of strong will, bravery, and shattering records. This post will go into depth regarding this diver’s unshakeable spirit, as shown in a Netflix video published last month:
Everything you need to know about Johanna Nordblad and her career.
Johanna Nordblad, 46, was born in November 1975 in Finland and is a designer, ice diver, and freediver. She apparently started diving as a toddler and was subsequently invited to try freediving in the year 2000. Johanna started freediving in 1999, after years of scuba diving. She started participating in world championship competitions, where divers competed in several categories to see who could dive the deepest or remain underwater the longest without using any breathing gear. Nordblad specializes in dynamic freediving with fins, which requires swimming as horizontally underwater as possible on a single breath. She established the women’s world record in 2004 in Cyprus by swimming a horizontal distance of 158 meters, and she has been one of the world’s best freedivers ever since.
Johanna Nordblad Incident
She got in a bike accident in 2010 that resulted in a fractured leg, and a doctor recommended she use cold water treatments to speed up her recuperation, beginning the next chapter of her career. She discussed the event in an interview with The Guardian:
“I was riding a downhill bike down a slick, muddy trail down a hill when I started to skid.” The fall wasn’t too hazardous, but I got unfortunate and landed on a rock. “Like a bent branch, my left leg was broken into a thousand pieces.”
Johanna Nordblad Breaks World Record
She returned to competition in 2015, breaking the women’s ice diving world record by leaping 103 meters from one ice hole to another while wearing just a bathing suit. She went on to say:
“I like diving because you get to feel the water stream through your fingertips… When you’re at the bottom, there’s no room for mistake. You just have yourself to rely on. You must be both comfortable and in command at the same time. Physical exertion is required for freediving, but mental discipline is much more vital. You must complete the dive without panicking or losing your cool.”
She has approximately 10,000 Instagram followers, and she routinely posts her artwork. Johanna also collaborated with her sister Elina Manninen as a photographer to produce underwater photographs and films. Don’t miss Hold Your Breath: The Ice Dive, which will be available exclusively on Netflix on May 3, 2022.
