FREEDIVING ZONE

simona auteri

BIO

Simona Auteri is a World Record Freediver and athlete of the Italian National Team for Apnea Outdoor (FIPSAS).

Simona stumbled into freediving in 2018 and found herself as a World Record Freediver by 2022, when she achieved notable success in the Italian outdoor freediving scene, securing two Italian Champion Titles and breaking two CMAS World Records. The unexpected journey continued with appearances at the 2023 Freediving World Championships in Roatan, Honduras, where she secured 4th and 5th places and in Lake Garda, Italy, where she earned the title of Italian Vice Champion in Constant Weight Monofin.

Beyond her passion for freediving, Simona's journey extends into architecture, entrepreneurship, and a commitment to helping others unlock their potential. 

In London, she founded Arteficius, an interior design consultancy with a vision to turn design dreams into tangible, awe-inspiring realities.

In the entrepreneurial space of freediving, Simona established Freedivingzone. Through this venture, she offers coaching, workshops, and motivational speeches, building a community bonded by a shared love for freediving.

Guided by the motto "Dream, Visualise, Execute" Simona is dedicated to empowering individuals, assisting them in realising their potential, and guiding them to become architects of their dreams.

MY STORY

Born and raised in Genova, a harbour town in the north of Italy, I spent my childhood in the water, between agonistic swimming and summers at the beach.

At 10 years old I went with my family on a trip to Sharm El Sheikh, and I fell in love with the coral reefs of the Red sea, however nobody ever taught me how to equalize my ears, so my experience underwater was limited to 2-3 m of depth.

In my teenage years I started competitive sailing and I explored another dimension of the sea, falling in love with the speed of flying on the water and the feeling of freedom that it would bring.

I then left Genova to spend a year in California and started competitive cross country running.

When the year passed, I started college and then moved to a border town in Switzerland in Mendrisio, where I attended the Academy of Architecture. With my studies I forgot about the sea, and the dream of water was replaced by the energies of the big cities, London, Paris and Tokyo. I moved to London to work as an Architect, and three years after I started my own consultancy company, Matter of Stuff. 

In 2015 I suffered from Endometriosis, and I had a surgery. Soon after I realized I had missed nature and sports too much and I started traveling solo in my free time.

I traveled across Central America, discovering artisanal centres in the Chiapas in Mexico, I spent a month volunteering in a permaculture and agroforestry farm in a remote part of the Belizean Jungle, planting cacao, vanilla, coconut and pineapples, and I traveled to see Shamans in Guatemala. 

But my life didn’t change planting coconuts in Belize, nor meeting the Shamans in Guatemala.

My life changed in January 2018, I had left to Philippines on yet another travel. I meant to go hiking in the North, but a hurricane changed my plans and I took a flight to the islands in the south. I met a girl there who suggested that I go to Camiguin, an Island with 9 volcanoes and thermal waters and she recommended that I stay in a place called Kurma. I took a boat and arrived to Kurma, and with my surprise, it was a freediving centre.

They asked me if I wanted to do a freediving course and I replied no, that it was a sport for crazy people- I had lost a friend to the sea to freediving just a couple years before and I wasn’t interested. Plus my ears always hurted when I tried to dive, so it wasn’t for me. 

The instructor there explained that all I needed to do was to equalize my ears before I felt any pain. I asked what’s equalization, and in short he replied that I had to pinch my nose and blow air to the ear until they popped open. I replied that I didn’t need to pinch my nose in order for my ears to pop, that I could make them pop open on command. The instructor looked annoyed, and he told me: ‘damn, you’re Hands Free!’ I didn’t know what Hands Free meant, but it looked like something cool. He said: ‘Well if you are Hands Free, then prove it, dive down’. I always loved challenges, so I did, and went to my first -6m on a single breath. 

When I surfaced, my world had changed. The emotions I felt there on that dive were the same emotions that I feel now when diving to -91m which fuel my passion for growth, for depth and for self improvement.

I went back to London and I looked for the first freediving course, it was April 15th, in cold Wraysbury ponds, water at 7 degrees and the planes flying low above to land at Heathrow airport. I soon found a freediving club, Apnea Revolution, and started training with them in the pool and in quarries in the UK.

In 2019 I left for a month to volunteer on a scientific research project to Nosy Be, with the Madagascar Whale Shark Project, with whom I collaborate since.

When Covid hit in 2020, I decided that I wanted to spend the summer in Nice at Cipa Apnee and Chango, diving with champions like Arnauld Gerald and Walid Boudiaf. Without any coaching, in two weeks I progressed from 35m to 52m.

My dream is to dive -100m in 2023.

world and national records

when

03 Sept 2022

04 Sept 2022

11 Nov 2021

15 May 2021

12 May 2021