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00:00Don't hold your breath unless you're crazy enough to do this.

00:06Welcome to Weird But True, your deep sea plunge into the strangest stories from The Post.

00:10Alexei, congratulations for the world's record, white color!

00:15This week, the world's greatest living freediver, Alexei Molchanov, broke his own record.

00:20Shocking the world, and naysayers on TikTok.

00:23Today's episode of Random White Acts of Danger, we have Alexei Molchanov.

00:27Margin for error?

00:28You guessed it.

00:29Death!

00:30While some scuba dive on vacation in the tropics, freedivers learn to swim underwater for long

00:35stretches of time without the help of a breathing apparatus.

00:38Me, I'll be sitting by the pool with a daiquiri.

00:41The scary sport allows for fins, a mask, and a guide rope.

00:45And of course, the desire to look in the face of the grim reaper and laugh.

00:49That's what Alexei did at the 8th Freediving World Championships in Cyprus.

00:52The 38-year-old, who is in self-exile from Russia, took home gold, which also happens

00:58to be his signature color.

00:59He's giving Austin Powers' gold member a run for his money.

01:02I love gold!

01:05Alexei plunged an insane 413 feet, all in a single breath.

01:10He broke last year's record by 5 feet, or exactly the height of one Sabrina Carpenter.

01:16At the 2024 Championships, Alexei held his breath for a staggering 4 minutes and 32 seconds,

01:22way longer than the average person who can suck it in for about 30-60 seconds before completely

01:28giving up.

01:29It's around that time when oxygen levels begin to dip, and you might feel tightness in your

01:32chest and a little wooziness.

01:35Carbon dioxide levels also increase, triggering involuntary muscle spasms and other weird feelings

01:40in your body.

01:41Legs-wise, I felt like I still have more energy.

01:45With bifins, it's always hard, like somewhere halfway on the way up.

01:51Sometimes you have this burning sensation in your legs, and it's sometimes harder, sometimes better.

01:55A burning sensation down under?

01:57You might want to ask your doctor about that one.

02:00After two minutes of holding your breath, even an experienced freediver might lose consciousness.

02:04Alexei has been training hard all summer by pumping iron, and showing off his impressive

02:09beach bod with his 431,000 Instagram followers.

02:13New York Post readers were singing his praises in the YouTube comments, calling him

02:17Crazy in a cool way, Comrade Aquaman, and a bona fide fishman.

02:22Jason Momoa might be out of a job.

02:24Alexei is the subject of the upcoming documentary, Freediver, from Paramount Movies, out December 7th.

02:30The doc covers his quest to set five world records in under four months.

02:35They also dive into his childhood as the son of another champion freediver, Natalia Molchenova.

02:41My mom was my coach since the beginning.

02:43Natalia Molchenova is widely considered the greatest freediver of all time.

02:47She'd had 41 world records and 23 world titles.

02:51They were like best friends, and now Alexei is training to follow in the footsteps of his mother.

02:56On August 2nd, 2015, she tragically died at the age of 53, during a recreational dive off the coast of Ibiza, Spain.

03:03Surprisingly, Alexei didn't take a break from competing.

03:07In fact, he said freediving helped him recover from the loss.

03:10For more Be A Bit True, be sure to subscribe to the New York Post on YouTube.

World's best freediver will leave you gasping for air | Weird But True

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