How Freediving's Governing Bodies Are Failing the Sport: What Every Freediving Student Should Know
An investigation into AIDA vs CMAS freediving governance, mishandled doping scandals, silenced complainants, and an industry where 47% of women report harassment. Essential reading before choosing freediving training or a freediving instructor.
Introduction: Why Freediving Governance Matters for Your Training
Freediving has never been more popular. From viral social media clips of divers descending into the blue to the growing number of freediving courses offered worldwide, the sport is experiencing unprecedented growth. Yet behind the serene imagery lies an uncomfortable reality: the organizations responsible for governing competitive freediving—and certifying your freediving instructor—are in crisis.
Two rival bodies claim authority over the sport. Their presidents have never met. Athletes who test positive for banned substances in one organization can compete—and set world records—in the other. Complaints about freediving training take months to be heard, and those who file them report being threatened with sanctions. National federations exclude most of the people who actually teach freediving courses. And a 2025 survey found that nearly half of all women in the broader diving industry have experienced sexual harassment.
This isn't the story of a few bad actors. It's the story of systemic failure—of volunteer organizations overwhelmed by responsibilities they cannot meet, of conflicts of interest embedded in the sport's DNA, and of structures that protect the powerful while silencing those who speak up.
For prospective freedivers researching freediving training options, understanding these failures matters. Not because governance problems will affect your first breath-hold in a pool, but because the organizations that certify freediving instructors, sanction competitions, and claim to uphold freediving safety standards are the same ones failing to address harassment, mishandling doping cases, and allowing conflicts of interest to flourish.
This investigation draws on primary sources including official organizational documents, recorded interviews with current AIDA leadership, documented testimony from volunteers, survey data from over 1,000 divers, and public records. Our goal is not to discourage anyone from taking freediving courses—it remains a beautiful, transformative sport—but to ensure consumers can make informed decisions about freediving training and the organizations behind it.
Understanding AIDA vs CMAS: The Two-Body Problem in Freediving
Competitive freediving is governed by two international organizations that don't recognize each other's records, don't coordinate their rules, and—until recently—barely communicated at all. Understanding this split is essential for anyone researching freediving certification options.
A Brief History of Freediving Governance
CMAS (Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques) was founded in 1959 under Jacques Cousteau and today represents over 130 national federations across all underwater sports—scuba, finswimming, underwater hockey, and freediving among them. Critically, CMAS holds recognition from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), making it the only pathway through which freediving could theoretically reach the Olympics.
But CMAS abandoned competitive freediving in the late 1970s. After fatalities and mounting freediving safety concerns, the organization decided depth diving was too dangerous and stopped sanctioning competitions entirely.
Into that void stepped AIDA (Association Internationale pour le Développement de l'Apnée), founded in 1992 by freedivers who wanted standardized rules and freediving safety protocols. As AIDA President Sasha Jeremic explained in a 2024 podcast interview:
When AIDA started... the aim was to transform something that was from who knows when—sponge picking or spearfishing or whatever—to become a sport... We have to take care about fair play, about rules that will bring safety into something that was in one moment considered as extremely dangerous.
AIDA succeeded. It grew from a handful of French enthusiasts to 60 national associations, ran 288 competition events in 2023 alone, and became the primary home for freediving certification and competition worldwide. Then CMAS came crawling back.
CMAS resumed sanctioning freediving competitions in 1995, creating parallel world championships, parallel world records, and parallel rules. The result is a sport where a freediving instructor can hold "AIDA certification" that CMAS doesn't recognize, or train under CMAS freediving standards that AIDA considers unofficial.
The Unity That Almost Was
In 2019, there was hope. AIDA President Klaas-Carel Hensen and CMAS President Anna Arzhanova were working toward unification. William Trubridge—holder of multiple world records and organizer of Vertical Blue, freediving's most prestigious competition—was helping broker an agreement. The goal: single world championships, single world records, unified freediving instructor qualifications, a unified pathway to the Olympics.
Then Hensen died suddenly from cancer in early 2020. According to Trubridge, the new AIDA leadership lost interest:
Rather than talking about what can we do to create this unity... it was more "no, can't really do that because of this." It was like retracting.
Today, the current presidents of AIDA and CMAS have never met. When asked directly about communication with her CMAS counterpart, AIDA President Jeremic admitted: "We never met."
In October 2023, CMAS formally severed what cooperation remained, issuing a statement that "we have resolved to discontinue further co-operation with AIDA" and announcing a competing World Series of Freediving.
Why This Matters for Freediving Training Decisions
The consequences are tangible for anyone researching freediving courses. Trubridge describes the inflation of achievements:
We used to have three world championships—three men, three women—every two years. Now we have 16. It's just one-fifth of the value. Five times as many medals, one-fifth of the value.
More concerning for those evaluating freediving instructor qualifications is what he calls the migration of top athletes:
Apart from maybe one discipline like female static apnea, all of the medalists at the AIDA Pool World Championships would not have got even on the podium at the CMAS World Championships that happened a couple of weeks later.
For consumers choosing freediving training, this creates confusion. Which freediving certification matters? Which records are legitimate? Which organization actually has authority over freediving instructor standards? The answer, increasingly, is that neither has clear authority—and both continue to claim it.
The 2023 Doping Scandal: A Case Study in Freediving Governance Failure
In July 2023, the fragility of freediving's governance was exposed at Vertical Blue in the Bahamas—the sport's most prestigious depth competition. This case study reveals why freediving industry accountability matters.
What Happened
Competition organizer William Trubridge—who was also competing—conducted luggage searches of Croatian athletes Petar Klovar and Vitomir Maričić. The search revealed sildenafil (Viagra), diazepam (Valium), alprazolam (Xanax), and furosemide.
Only furosemide appears on WADA's official prohibited list. But Vertical Blue maintained its own supplementary list banning benzodiazepines and "any prescription-only substance that enhances performance"—though research into sildenafil's potential as a performance enhancer was only initiated after discovery.
Critically, both athletes tested negative in the official doping control conducted the same day. They were banned from Vertical Blue not for positive drug tests, but for possession of substances.
Divergent Responses Reveal Freediving Safety Standards Gap
What happened next revealed everything wrong with freediving's governance structure and freediving safety standards.
CMAS acted immediately: provisional suspensions, disciplinary proceedings, and €5,000 fines plus six-month bans for "ethical violations"—possessing substances "capable of influencing performance or endangering safety." CMAS also provisionally banned sildenafil and benzodiazepines pending scientific review, claiming to have "gone beyond" WADA standards.
AIDA did nothing—despite enormous pressure to act. According to Trubridge, 75 athletes signed a petition. Twenty percent of AIDA's national federations formally requested a special assembly vote—the quorum required under AIDA's own statutes to force a vote on the matter.
At first they ignored it. And then they came up with very various different reasons to delay it... eventually never went ahead with that AIDA assembly vote, which is a contention of the AIDA statutes.
Two months later, both Croatian athletes competed at the AIDA World Championships in Cyprus. Klovar set an AIDA world record in Free Immersion.
The Tory George Case
A parallel case further exposed the dysfunction in freediving certification oversight. American freediver Tory George tested positive for a benzodiazepine through ITA/WADA laboratory testing—an out-of-competition test conducted by the Caribbean Regional Anti-Doping Organization (RADO).
CMAS immediately imposed a provisional ban. AIDA's response was more troubling. According to Trubridge:
The AIDA board actually petitioned AIDA USA to allow this athlete to compete at the World Championships.
A meeting took place between the athlete, AIDA board members, an AIDA USA representative, and Double K (a sponsor of both the athlete and the World Championships).
AIDA President Jeremic acknowledged the meeting occurred but distanced herself from it: "That person was talking in his own name," she said, referring to the then-AIDA president.
Only AIDA USA's refusal prevented the athlete from competing fully. He was still allowed to participate as a "starter" (opener) at the AIDA World Championships.
The WADA Gap in Freediving Certification
Underlying the entire scandal is a fundamental disparity: CMAS is a WADA Code signatory with established anti-doping infrastructure. AIDA, until 2024, was not.
Only in 2024 did AIDA adopt "new anti-doping rules, fully in line with the World Anti-Doping Code." Before that, AIDA relied on ad hoc competition-specific policies—like Vertical Blue's own supplementary prohibited list—creating inconsistency and confusion.
For athletes, this means different prohibited substance lists depending on which organization sanctions their competition. For consumers researching freediving courses, it raises a question: if the organization behind your freediving certification can't manage anti-doping consistently, what else might they be getting wrong about freediving training safety?
Inside the Machine: Organizational Dysfunction and Freediving Instructor Oversight
The doping scandal exposed deeper problems within AIDA's governance structure—problems documented extensively by Elena Petrushina, creator of AIDA's Youth Program and an eight-year veteran freediving instructor with extensive freediving instructor qualifications.
The Education Committee Crisis
In 2020, Petrushina and other Education Committee members—responsible for developing freediving training standards—experienced months without payment, with no explanation from the Board. When they raised concerns, the response was dismissive.
The President at the time wrote:
Generally speaking, based on how the AIDA structure and statutes have been conceived, everybody is expected to work without compensation.
When Petrushina complained about spending "at least half an hour every day only to log in" to communication platforms, she was told this was "a very small price to pay."
At a Board meeting, Petrushina was "openly laughed at for complaining about work without compensation" and "accused of creating a 'mess on Facebook'" for answering freediving instructors' questions about why the Youth Program was delayed.
The Disciplinary Committee Failure: What Happens When You Complain About Freediving Training
When Petrushina filed a complaint about mistreatment during a freediving instructor course, AIDA's complaint handling proved dysfunctional. This is critical reading for anyone wondering what happens when freediving training goes wrong.
It took me 4 months of correspondence to get my complaint received by the AIDA Disciplinary Committee. They first refused to take it, forwarding my letter to other people in the organisation against their own rules. Then I was told that the Disciplinary Committee was not formed.
When the Committee finally ruled, they rejected her complaint without asking her additional questions—basing their decision on correspondence with one course mate who didn't reply and the accused trainer. Then they threatened her:
"The DC will not view a future complaint like this one as favorable to Elena's standing as an AIDA representative/professional. Sanctions may be viewed as appropriate in the future if the behavior of filing unjustified cases continues."
In a YouTube video published on 15 August 2024 by Adam Stern featuring William Trubridge and current AIDA president Sasa Jeremic, Trubridge revealed that the Disciplinary Committee had "been disbanded basically for a year now... a member left and there wasn't quorum for a while... it still hasn't been reinstated, still isn't operational."
This is the organization responsible for freediving instructor qualifications and freediving certification standards—yet it cannot maintain a functioning complaints process.
The Volunteer Problem
Central to AIDA's dysfunction is its reliance on unpaid volunteers for critical functions affecting freediving training quality worldwide.
AIDA is a volunteering nonprofit organization... run by a small team.
Board members cannot be paid under current statutes, yet they perform operational tasks. Jeremic herself admitted:
I was last year on a World Championship judging... I was entering results and this is how we are all doing.
When told a president shouldn't be doing data entry, she responded: "If you find me someone who will do it, I will find something else for me."
This isn't sustainable governance for an organization overseeing freediving instructor certification worldwide.
The Australian Example: What's Wrong with Australian Freediving Training Governance
International problems cascade to national federations. A 2019 critique of the Australian Freediving Association (AFA) by AIDA freediving instructor Clinton Laurence reveals how governance failures limit sport development—essential reading for anyone researching Melbourne freediving or Australian freediving training options.
Exclusionary Structures in Australian Freediving
Unlike Australian swimming and surfing—which welcome private clubs—the AFA excludes private and for-profit freediving schools from membership. These are the very organizations that actually "educate, train, certify and maintain freediving safety standards" for most Australian freedivers.
As of 2019, only six clubs were affiliated with the AFA nationally. Laurence argued:
The AFA, as the national body, does not represent a large part of the sport of freediving throughout Australia.
This means if you're researching Melbourne freediving training or Brisbane freediving courses, the national body may not represent your instructor at all.
Fee Inequities Affecting Australian Freediving Training
Non-club-affiliated members—often regional Australians with no nearby clubs—pay higher fees than some affiliated club members, despite receiving fewer services. Base membership rates weren't even published transparently on the AFA website.
Laurence noted the membership categories were described as "illegal" after legal consultation.
Abandoned Disciplines
The AFA no longer provides a yearly national depth competition. Even our closest neighbour New Zealand continues to run depth competitions. Half the sport of freediving is not being promoted and developed by the AFA, our national body.
For those pursuing serious freediving training in Australia, this limits competitive opportunities.
Insurance Illusions in Australian Freediving
Many assume AFA membership provides personal insurance coverage for freediving training. In reality, Laurence found, the public liability policy "only protects the AFA as a company." If you injure yourself, "the AFA insurance policy does not provide any medical coverage whatsoever."
Bottom line for Melbourne freediving and Australian freediving training: The national body exists primarily to sanction AIDA competitions, offering limited value to the broader freediving community it claims to represent.
Freediving Safety Beyond the Water: Sexual Harassment in Diving
Freediving safety isn't just about preventing blackouts. It's about protecting students from exploitation—a critical consideration when choosing freediving training.
The Numbers (Diving Industry-Wide)
A June-July 2025 survey by the Business of Diving Institute and InDepth Magazine collected responses from 1,066 scuba divers worldwide. The findings were stark:
35% of all respondents reported experiencing sexual harassment at least once
47% of women reported harassment—nearly half
Dive professionals were more vulnerable: 42% reported harassment vs. 27% of recreational divers
36% of dive professionals said their training agencies lack specific harassment policies or they're unaware of them
28% reported their dive businesses lack such policies
Qualitative comments described harassment as "rampant," "endemic," and "a structural problem within the industry." Many felt it was "part of the job description." The industry was described as "decades behind" in addressing the issue.
Freediving Is Not Immune
As Tamara Adame noted in InDepth Magazine: "This issue does not end with scuba. In freediving, too, people have come forward with disturbing numbers—cases where dozens of victims had to plead for one instructor's removal before something was done. Cases where multiple allegations were brushed aside because one person's report was not enough or there wasn't evidence."
When Agencies Protect Abusers Instead of Freediving Students
Tamara Adame's September 2025 InDepth article documented a case study in agency failure that should concern anyone researching freediving instructor qualifications.
A dive instructor and shop owner sexually abused a student who was also his employee. The perpetrator was found guilty in court—conviction published on the local jurisdiction's official website. He paid bail, walked free, and reopened his dive center the next day.
When the victim reported to the instructor's certification agency requesting his credentials be revoked, the agency said it was "not their concern." When pressed, they "hid behind privacy laws, refusing to share whether any action was taken, effectively protecting the abuser's professional status."
The Power Imbalance Problem in Freediving Training
Freediving creates especially vulnerable conditions for students. Students depend on freediving instructors not just for knowledge but for their literal survival underwater. Freediving training involves close physical contact. Instructors control depth, duration, and safety protocols. Students are often in remote locations—dive boats, beach destinations—far from support networks.
The intimate, transformative nature of breath-hold freediving training creates emotional bonds. As Petrushina noted in her documentation of AIDA:
Instructor has a lot of authority and gains a lot of trust. He or she is a beautiful strong person who dives very well and has taught the child to dive as well. Children often feel that they owe their achievements to the instructor. So do their parents.
Yet freediving's governing bodies have minimal safeguards for freediving training safety. There are no mandatory background checks for freediving instructors. No independent reporting mechanisms. No published harassment policies with enforcement teeth.
Compare this with USA Diving, which operates under the U.S. Center for SafeSport. They require criminal background checks for all coaches and officials. They accept reports of sexual misconduct and "intimate relationships involving an imbalance of power." They have Minor Athlete Abuse Prevention Policies (MAAPP) with mandatory reporting requirements and prohibition of retaliation against complainants.
Freediving certification has none of this infrastructure. When AIDA's own Disciplinary Committee threatened a complainant with sanctions for filing a complaint, it demonstrated precisely why victims don't come forward—and why the 47% harassment rate persists.
Case Study: When Conflicts of Interest Block Accountability
A former committee member of Melbourne freediving club documented how governance failures play out at every level of the sport.
The club's reputation precedes it—freedivers outside MFC have long known the club is controlled by senior members with commercial interests, and many have chosen to stay away entirely.
The club's committee was dominated by members with financial ties to a single freediving school. The school owners—also senior committee members—used the club as a client funnel, monopolizing access to club equipment and resources while excluding competing instructors. The club's founding president left after these same senior members blocked him from posting an advertisement for his own freediving school—advertising privileges, it seems, were reserved for the inner circle. Ironically, a senior committee member recuses themselves from any competition discussions and does not volunteer for competitions—despite the club being primarily a sports club under the national federation—yet the same conflict-of-interest standard wasn't applied to commercial interests. This same committee member has not continued their freediving education, only trains in one discipline, yet is allowed to conduct initial safety training for new members.
Safety is touted as a priority in freediving, yet at MFC practice falls far short of promise. When senior members are unavailable, other members are left to train on their own without any guidance. Even volunteer safety is neglected—competition volunteers were not registered with the club, leaving them unprotected by MFC/AFA insurance if anything went wrong.
During a liveaboard trip organised by senior members through their commercial enterprise and advertised to all club members using the club email, the committee member experienced severe bullying and harassment affecting their wellbeing. The bullying stemmed from the member's attempts to introduce a conflict of interest policy, as senior members owned a private enterprise that was directly benefiting from their positions at the club. The complaint was reported to club leadership. When concerns were raised, they were dismissed without proper procedure—committee members had close personal ties to the accused.
The club's response: Nothing documented. No formal complaint procedure existed. The committee members with conflicts of interest remained in their positions, continuing to exploit vulnerable members. No action was taken against the perpetrator.
The complaint was then escalated to the Australian Freediving Association (AFA), the national governing body. Their response revealed deeper systemic failures:
Six months of silence—the AFA only responded when the complainant followed up
Investigation closed with "no evidence"
The AFA did not follow its own written complaint procedures
When escalated to the Australian Underwater Federation (AUF), they confirmed they were only involved as an "outside party"—the investigation remained under AFA control
The pattern is consistent across jurisdictions: clubs lack proper documentation and procedures, national bodies fail to follow their own rules, and complainants exhaust themselves navigating a system designed to protect the status quo rather than its members. It seems these clubs do not care for their members or for freediving itself.
How Other Sports Solved Governance Problems
Freediving isn't the first sport to face governance fragmentation. How others resolved similar crises offers lessons for freediving industry accountability.
Boxing: The Cautionary Tale
The International Boxing Association (IBA, formerly AIBA) was suspended by the IOC in 2019 for governance and corruption issues. In June 2023, the IOC took the unprecedented step of expelling IBA entirely—the first international federation ever expelled from the Olympic movement.
Reformist federations responded by creating World Boxing in April 2023. By February 2025, it had 152 member federations and IOC provisional recognition.
The lesson: The IOC will expel non-compliant federations. Sports survive through new, compliant bodies.
Surfing: The Success Story
Like freediving, surfing has two major bodies: the ISA (International Surfing Association), which holds IOC recognition, and the WSL (World Surf League), which runs the professional tour.
The critical difference: they cooperate rather than compete. In 2017, ISA and WSL reached "a landmark agreement on Olympic qualification." Top WSL surfers participate in ISA events for Olympic qualification. Neither body undermines the other's legitimacy.
ISA President Fernando Aguerre lobbied for Olympic inclusion for over 20 years, growing ISA from 32 member nations in 1995 to over 109 today. In 2016, surfing was voted into the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
The lesson: Governance fragmentation can be solved through cooperation.
What This Means for Freediving
Trubridge has suggested AIDA should "step aside and let CMAS handle the competitive side and focus more on the education [which AIDA] does better than any other organization."
There's no other sport in which an organization handles both the competitive side and the education side... not in tennis, not in surfing, not in any sport.
This could ultimately improve freediving instructor qualifications and freediving training standards—but requires organizations to cooperate in ways they currently don't.
What Needs to Change in Freediving Governance
The problems are systemic. So must the solutions be for improved freediving safety standards and freediving industry accountability.
Immediate Actions for Freediving Safety
Unified anti-doping framework: Both AIDA and CMAS should adopt identical WADA-compliant standards with joint testing protocols.
Mutual record recognition: A joint ratification committee could end the confusing dual-record system.
Independent complaint handling: An ombudsperson outside organizational structures, with published procedures, defined timelines, and explicit protection against retaliation for complainants about freediving training.
Sexual harassment policies: Published, enforced policies at every level. Mandatory background checks for freediving instructors. Independent reporting mechanisms.
Structural Reforms for Better Freediving Instructor Standards
Professional governance: Paid executive director positions. Term limits for board members. Separation between people who organize competitions, compete in them, and judge them.
Freediving instructor qualifications reform: Standardized, rigorous freediving instructor certification with ongoing professional development requirements.
National federation standards: Clear criteria for national federation recognition. Inclusion of private/for-profit schools that actually provide freediving training to most students.
How to Choose Freediving Training: What This Means for You
If you're considering freediving courses, these governance failures shouldn't necessarily stop you. The sport itself remains beautiful, transformative, and—with proper instruction—safe. But you should be an informed consumer when evaluating freediving training options.
Questions to Ask Before Choosing a Freediving Instructor
When researching freediving training, freediving courses, or how to choose a freediving instructor, ask:
Does this organization have a published harassment policy? If the answer is "I don't know," that tells you something about freediving training safety.
Is there an independent reporting mechanism for complaints about freediving training? Not just "tell your instructor"—an actual independent channel.
What background checks were conducted on this freediving instructor? If none, ask why not.
What freediving instructor qualifications does my instructor hold? Understand the difference between AIDA certification and CMAS freediving credentials.
What happens if I need to file a complaint about my freediving course? Get specifics. "We take complaints seriously" is not a process.
What does my membership/certification fee actually buy? Understand what insurance covers you personally versus what protects the organization.
Conclusion: A Sport at a Crossroads
Freediving deserves better governance than it has—and consumers researching freediving training deserve better information.
The sport has grown from a niche pursuit to a global phenomenon. It offers profound experiences—the silence of depth, the focus of breath-hold, the connection to water that humans have sought for millennia.
But the organizations claiming to govern this sport are struggling. Two rival bodies that won't coordinate on freediving instructor standards. Doping cases mishandled while athletes who test positive continue competing. Volunteers stretched thin doing jobs that require professional staff. Complainants threatened for speaking up about freediving training problems. Nearly half of women reporting harassment in an industry that lacks basic safeguards.
For anyone researching freediving courses, freediving instructor qualifications, or freediving training options: Ask questions. Demand transparency. Support freediving instructors and organizations that demonstrate real commitment to freediving safety and accountability, not just rhetoric.
The water doesn't care about organizational politics. But the people entering it—students trusting freediving instructors with their safety, athletes dedicating years to competitive achievement, communities building around shared passion—deserve organizations worthy of their trust.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for educational and consumer protection purposes. It represents independent analysis based on publicly available sources and does not constitute legal advice. Readers are encouraged to verify current policies directly with relevant organizations.