Freediving

Sports Feature, first prize singles

20-07-2006

Guillaume Néry (24, France) trains for his attempt to break a world freediving record, off the coast of Nice.

Freediving is carried out without oxygen tanks, and participants try to reach as great a depth as possible. Néry succeeded in his record-breaking quest with a 109-meter-deep dive on 6 September. The record held only until December, when it was beaten by a 111-meter dive by Austrian Herbert Nitsch.

Commissioned by: Deadline Photo Press

Photo Credit: Franck Seguin

Franck Seguin is the Deputy Picture Editor at L’Équipe SNC Group, a publishing company in Paris that owns the French newspaper L’Équipe, along with the French equivalent of Sports Illustrated, L’Équipe Magazine.

He works across these titles as well as France Football, Velo Mag and L’Équipe.fr, the first sports website in France. Seguin has covered the Olympics, numerous football and rugby World Cup tournaments and specialises in covering sports features in-depth, in particular free diving.

Before joining L’Équipe, Seguin spent 10 years at the Tempsport picture agency, and prior to that he worked at the Paris-based Sygma photo agency. He also ran his own general features agency, Deadline, which covered the Cannes Film Festival as well as political and social news events.