Doctors once assumed brain damage was certain for anyone whose respiration stopped for more than three or four minutes. And yet, on June 7, in a swimming pool in Athens, Sietas submerged himself underwater for 10 minutes and 12 seconds, shattering the world record by more than a minute.
Sietas, a lanky fellow who stands 6-foot-4 and weighs 165 pounds, doesn’t appear any worse for the wear. “I’m a pioneer in my sport,” he said in an interview, relaxing at a cafe at this river city in northern Germany.
He’s taking a short break from training these days after a busy summer. In September, he sat in a plexiglass tank of water on the stage of “Live With Regis and Kelly” in New York and vied for the record in a slightly different category, in which he was allowed to soak up pure oxygen beforehand. This time, he held his breath for 17 minutes and 19 seconds before he bobbed to the surface.
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