Goran Colak

Colak started his amateur free diving career in 2006 when he entered his first competition, the Submania Cup in Zagreb. Less than one year later, he won his first Croatian championship and broke several national records. Colak turned professional in 2011 and joined the exclusive group of free diving professionals around the world. Colak was the 2009 Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (CMAS) World Champion and world record holder in a joint event with AIDA International (AIDA), the strongest free diving organization in the world. Colak dove 244 m in dynamic apnea with fins and won CMAS and overall first place, breaking the CMAS world record. Colak was the 2011 CMAS World Champion in dynamic apnea with fins, with a 250 m swim, setting a new CMAS world record, his fourth CMAS world record in his short career. On October 16, 2011, he became the AIDA International world champion in the same event (AIDA World Championship in Lignano, Italy), and set the new AIDA world record of 273 m, surpassing the previous record of 265 m held by Dave Mullins. At the same event he won two gold medals, one silver medal and set a new world record. Colak won the 2012 AIDA Team World Championship, held in Nice, France with Veljano Zanki and Bozidar Petani as his teammates. This was first appearance and first gold medal for the Croatian team at a team World Championships. In addition to gold medal the Croatian team set the new all-time best in points with 840 points, beating the previous record of 839 points set by the Denmark team at Okinawa in 2010. Colak competed in 2013 Belgrade Pool World Championship, and won all three gold medals from each of the pool disciplines and set one world record. Goran Colak won the dynamic apnea without fins finals with a 206 m dive, the dynamic apnea with fins with a 281 m dive, which beat his current world record of 273 m set in 2011. On the third day he won his third gold medal in static, holding his breathe for 8minutes and 59 seconds. Colak was dominating the Belgrade World Championship from the very beginning to the end, winning every qualification heat and every final. His results in qualifications were 182 m in DNF, 250 m in DYN and 8:34 min in STA. Colak competed in 2013 at CMAS World Games in Kazan, Russia. He again broke a Croatian national record in static apnea to 9:18 min and won bronze medal. At the same competition he won two silver medals in dynamic apnea with fins (260 m) and dynamic apnea without fins (194 m). Colak was the only male athlete who won medals in all three disciplines in Kazan. Colak announced AIDA WR attempt in Belgrade from 21-27 November 2013. He succeeded on the first day with the dive of 225m, adding 7m to the old record that was held by Dave Mullins from New Zealand. Colak was a member of Croatian national team at AIDA Team World Championship in Sardinia 2014. He was the most successful athlete of the entire competition in overall points. He set two Team WCh records, one in static (9:13 min), and one in dynamic with fins (250 m). Unfortunately, Croatian team finished fourth, after 2 other members, Bozidar Petani and Bruno Segvic earned two disqualifications or red cards in dynamic with fins and constant weight. Colak competed in 2014 CMAS European championship in Spain (Tenerife), as a member of Croatian national team. He broke CMAS and overall World Record in dynamic apnea with fins, with a dive of 288m adding 23 m to CMAS WR (previously held by Aleksandr Kostyshen from Russia) and 7 m to overall (AIDA and CMAS) WR (adding 7 m to his own 281-metre AIDA dive from 2013). He also won a gold medal in that discipline. He also won a silver medal in static apnea. In 2015, Colak took part at his third Individual AIDA Pool World championship, Belgrade, Serbia. He won one silver (STA), and one bronze medal (DNF), making this the first AIDA WCh where he did not win medals in all the disciplines. Colak also announced that, at this point, he will start moving from pool to the depth disciplines. At 2015 AIDA depth World championship, which was held in Limassol Cyprus, Colak had his depth debut. He broke all three depth national records with dives to 71 m in CNF, 108 m in CWT and 98 m in FIM. He was awarded silver medal for his Constant weight dive to 108 m and was an overall winner of the Championship. For the first time AIDA awarded the overalls. The award is called "Natalia Molchanova award", by late Natalia Molchanova, the most successful fereediver of all time. Colak became the first person who received this award. Later in 2015, Colak took part at the first CMAS depth World championship in Ischia, Italy. He competed in Constant weight (CWT), same discipline where he won silver medal earlier this year at AIDA World championship in Cyprus with a dive of 108 m. This time he dove 110 m, winning the gold medal and setting the new CMAS World record. In 2016 Colak competed at AIDA individual World championship in Turku, Finland. As the only athlete representing Croatia he managed to win one silver medal in static with the time of 9:14min. Later that year he suffered some medical issues with the kidney stone and DCS during the depth training in Croatia. This forced him to finish the 2016. season and focus on recovery and next season. In 2017 Colak competed at CMAS European pool championship in Cagliari, Italy. He competed in all 4 free diving disciplines winning 3 gold medals and one silver medal. God medals ware as follows; Dynamic no fins with 206m and new WR for 50m pool, Static with the time of 9:58min and Dynamic with fins with the distance of 279m. One silver medal was form Dynamic with BiFins with the distance of 244m. Same year (2017) Colak competed ac CMAS European depth championship in Kas, Turkey. He competed in all 3 depth disciplines winning silver medal on the first day in CWT with a dive to 113m, second day he won the gold in CNF with a dive to 83m, and the third day he was DQ in CWT Bi fins for a rope pull, during a (silver medal) dive to 105m. Colak is currently AIDA's most successful male athlete from AIDA and CMAS World and European Championships with 15 gold, 8 silver and 3 bronze medals. Colak was nominated for Croatian athlete of the year in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2013, 2014,2017. Colak won the Dubai Range Rover challenge for two consecutive years, (2011,2012,2015,2017) and came second in 2013, 2014, 2016. Colak announced on September 28, 2013, that he would attempt to break the world record in static apnea on pure oxygen, held by Tom Sietas with a time of 22 minutes 22 seconds. Goran succeeded by holding his breath, at the Zagreb main square, for 22:30 min, setting the new Guinness World Record. On 20 June 2014 he improved his record to 23:01.