Two hundred and fifty-two metres. One breath. No fins. Mateusz Malina pushed off the wall at the Duna Arena in Budapest and, four minutes and forty seconds later, surfaced with the hardest record in pool freediving once more in his hands. Dynamic No Fins asks the most and forgives the least. Malina answered it again.
Dynamic No Fins strips the discipline to its core. Freedivers cover the greatest distance underwater on one breath, with no fins and no propulsion aid. Every metre comes from a single pull of the arms and a slow, deliberate glide. In a fifty-metre pool, 252 metres means five full lengths under the surface, holding form as the body begs to rise.
How the swim unfolded
The record came on day two of the World Apnea 2026 Pool Championships. The swim carried Malina past the 250-metre wall, five lengths of an Olympic pool, and it was the fifth time he has raised his own world record. The margin to the field was vast. Malina took gold with 252 metres, France's Guillaume Bourdila silver with 202 metres, and Germany's Philipp Heinzelmann bronze with 200 metres. Fifty metres separated the champion from the next man. In a sport measured length by length, that is a chasm.
The result stood alongside another. It was the second world record of the championships, after Magdalena Solich-Talanda set the first in Dynamic Bi-Fins on the opening day. Malina, though, kept it quiet and clean, with the mark noted as pending doping results.
A record he keeps chasing
This was not a first ascent but a further step on a path Malina has walked alone. His progression reads 226 metres, 232 metres, 244 metres, 250 metres and now 252 metres. The gains grow smaller as the limits close in. Two metres, at this depth of fatigue, is a season of work.
The ownership is longer still. Malina has held the DNF world record without a break since 2014, and no other athlete has taken it from him in twelve years. Set that against the reach of the sport itself. A 250-metre turn came within grasp only in 2010, and then with a monofin. Malina now travels further on nothing but his hands.
His weekend did not end there. He had opened the championships with gold in Dynamic Bi-Fins, swimming 295 metres, before returning to the discipline that is his alone.
He surfaced, raised a hand, and let the number speak. The wall he keeps moving is his own.
