Maine swimmer takes to the ice for a challenging swim in pursuit of a world record

Freediver Mandy Sumner is back in Maine after setting the Guinness World Record for the longest bifin swim under ice by a woman in a bathing suit in Norway on March 2nd. Mr. Sumner, 46, is originally from North Berwick and now lives in Sanford. Gregory Reck/Staff Photographer

Mandy Sumner was swimming in a frozen lake with a 19-inch thick slab of ice several feet above her head. And she had to hold her breath for over a minute.

As you can imagine, my instinct to quit kicked in. In fact, this often happens.

“You have to get through it,” she said. She was “singing songs in her head and counting the strokes. It keeps her brain busy and she doesn’t have to think, ‘I don’t want to do this.’ ”

After 75 meters, Sumner resurfaced, setting a Guinness World Record for the longest bifin swim under ice by a woman in a bathing suit. The water temperature was 35 degrees, but we didn’t have wetsuits. The 46-year-old from North Berwick accomplished the feat on March 2 at Lake Mystiernet in Norway.

Why did she do that? After a chuckle, Sumner had a reason.

“The simple answer is, why not?” she said. “But the more complicated answer is that I love being in the water, whether it’s cold or warm. … I wanted to do something that was important to me again.”

That love of water, honed by a childhood spent swimming in pools in Maine, led him to freediving, a sport in which swimmers and divers push themselves to cover unusual depths and distances underwater. It led to passion.

For Sumner, the more time he can spend in the water, the better.

“I’ve always been a brownie,” she said. “My whole life, whether it’s at the beach or at the pool.”



Sumner’s freediving abilities impressed those he met during his travels.

“She has great technique and stamina and managed to stay calm in the cold,” said Norwegian freediving shop owner and coach Arve Gravningen, who organized the event. She says, “Eighty percent[of freediving]is done between the ears. Holding your breath and practicing technique helps, but if your head isn’t in the right position, you’re not going to get anywhere.”

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Growing up, Mandy Sumner created opportunities for swimming that she didn’t have before. She joined the Sanford Titans club swim team at the age of five, where she continued swimming until she graduated from high school, and when she went to Noble High School, she practiced with Sanford and Masabesic since there was no team. I started a team to do that.

“The swim team was my life,” she said.

Sumner attended the University of Southern Maine, where he played collegiate soccer, when he put his swimming career on hold. However, when she came west to Hawaii in 2009 for her job, she returned to the ocean and she began her scuba diving. In 2013, she heard that Annabelle Edwards, founder of the U.S. Women’s Freediving Team, was leading a group that met weekly to go diving in Honaunau Bay.

Mandy Sumner set a Guinness World Record on March 2 at Lake Mystjernet in Norway, when the water temperature reached 35 degrees Celsius. Heidi Voll Photos

Freediving requires divers to hold their breath rather than using scuba gear to breathe. Although it’s a niche sport in the United States, it has a more passionate following in Europe. Competitions are based on how deep divers can go underwater by swimming or pulling along a rope, and how long they can hold their breath.

Sumner and two friends had previously attempted to swim 110 feet down to a shipwreck they had visited while scuba diving.

“The first dive I did, they put a diver watch on me…and I went down to the wreck, stood on the wreck, and then I came back and they were like, ‘Where did you go?’ ”’ Sumner said. “They didn’t expect me to go that deep.”

Sumner met Edwards two weeks later, and soon he was flying from Oahu to the Big Island every weekend to see her. Ms. Sumner, who lost her mother in 2008, referred to Ms. Edwards as her “hanai” (Hawaiian for “adopted”) mother.

“Mandy is a natural,” Edwards said. “From day one, we knew this person had the ability. … You’ve got to be able to flatten her eardrums. She can break ties, she’s competitive, and she’s got the ability to… It was very comfortable.”

In 2014, Sumner began freediving competitively. by september, She competed in competitions in Hawaii and Honduras, and represented the United States at the World Championships in Italy. In 2015, she competed in the Individual World Championships in Cyprus, where she won gold with a 58-meter (190-foot) no-fin dive. She is the only American in history to do so. deeply.

Mandy Sumner swims underwater at Lake Mystiernet in Norway. Video stills by Arve Gravningen

By then, Sumner was hooked. She split her training between Hawaii and Egypt, competed in Greece, Egypt and Mexico within two months of Cyprus, dipping into her savings and in one case setting up a GoFundMe platform to support her travels. Ta.

“I loved the feeling of being underwater,” said Sumner, who said she could hold her breath for five and a half minutes. “The deeper you dive, the more your body adapts to it in different ways. … It’s so peaceful underwater. It’s just you, and that’s what I really enjoyed.

“It was really a passion. And I was really good at it, so things worked out.”

“Ever since I was a kid, I always had this weird fear that if I fell into the ice, I’d never get back out,” Mandy Sumner said. “That’s why we wanted to do this in a safe way. To see what it’s like.” Heidi Voll Photos

But by Mexico, she hit a wall. Daily diving became difficult. She reduced the amount of her activities in her next three years and took up freediving primarily as a hobby for her. She primarily focused her career as a Geographic Information Systems Analyst for a utility company, working in mapping and data migration.

“I’ve had really top freedivers, world record holders, world champion freedivers tell me that it’s too much and I need to slow down,” she said. “But I didn’t listen. I got to the point where I had to listen.”

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After leaving the sport, Sumner still managed to participate in freediving events, working as a coach, referee, and safety diver. At an event in Iceland in 2019, she competed in pool and met South African sub-ice swimming record holder Amber Philary. Sumner began coaching Philly at subsequent events, and she met Norwegian freediver Gravningen while experimenting with cold water swimming. Seeing what Sumner had accomplished in her competition, Graveningen convinced her to give her a shot at her record.

Sumner said she found the right headspace at the end of 2023 after suffering a miscarriage earlier this year. The ordeal took a toll on her mental health, but she found the peace she needed in taking on her challenge of attempting her world record.

Mandy Sumner smiles after completing the longest bifin swim by a woman in a swimsuit under the ice at Lake Mystiernet in Norway on March 2. Heidi Voll Photos

“Last year was a struggle. We’re finally coming out of this, and I feel like setting goals and working towards those goals is a big part of this,” she said. “It was a distraction, but it was very therapeutic. … Whenever you go into the water, even if you’re having a bad day or something, when you’re in the water, everything just disappears. It’s It takes away sadness. It takes away bad thoughts.”

Sumner, who has lived in Sanford since the pandemic, began working with strength and conditioning specialist Emily Koehler three times a week through Maine Health’s Sports Performance Center. With records in mind, they focused on track and field training, upper body and core strength, and injury prevention.

“When you see her come through the door…she has a very strong build,” Koehler said. “She’s genetically built that way. … She can put on muscle, she can generate power. She’s very, very athletic.”

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As a child in Maine, Sumner had no interest in ice water. Far from it.

“Ever since I was a child, I always had this strange fear that if I fell into the ice, I would never be able to get back out,” she said. “That’s why we wanted to do this in a safe way. To see what it’s like.”

Sumner arrived in Norway on February 18 and began working with Gravningen to prepare for the dive. They worked on ways to keep her breathing in the cold water. She dives underwater so quickly that she can’t breathe enough to reach 75 meters (246 feet). If she waits too long, she will waste precious energy treading water.

And, of course, there was adaptation to the cold. To win this record, Sumner would have to wear a swimsuit rather than a wetsuit, which would expose more skin. According to the Personal Flotation Device Manufacturers Association, hypothermia in extremely cold water can cause loss of consciousness in about 15 minutes.

“If you’re not used to it, it’s a shock and you want to snap out of it,” Sumner says. “It took me about a week and a half to get used to it. … He just had to focus his mind on, ‘Yeah, this is just ice water, cold water, you can do it.’ ”

Sumner was joined by three other people attempting to set world records in various categories. Her job prepared her. But on the day of her record attempt, after entering the water, she felt her composure crumble.

Mandy Sumner on March 2 at Norway’s Mystiernet Lake, where ice is 16 inches deep. She swam 75 meters, setting her new world record. Heidi Voll Photos

“My nerves definitely got the better of me,” she said. She said, “I had been trying all week to slow down my kicks, to not run so fast, not to expend so much energy. That all went out the window. I just got in there and did the basics. We sprinted.”

The ice Sumner swam through had holes drilled every five meters in case he ran out of breath and needed to resurface. She had to resist her temptation to pull up early.

“At the beginning of the dive, I couldn’t catch my breath properly,” Sumner said. Sumner had Gravningen swim with him, wearing scuba gear for safety. “After about 30 meters I felt like I wasn’t getting enough breath. But the moment that feeling came and that thought came to me, I started singing a song in my head and counting the number of kicks and just thinking I knew I could do that dive. It was only a minute and 15 seconds, so I don’t think I could hold my breath that long.”

Sumner proudly emerged from the other side and cheered. She is currently awaiting recognition in the Guinness Book of World Records.

“It was a really nice celebration and I felt great,” she said. “I was just happy and had a big smile on my face. I was really proud that I said I was going to do this and I did it, and that something crazy like this was possible.” I showed people that if you set your mind to do something, you just put your heart into it and you can do it.”

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