GQ UK 02.2022

KYRNGICIOKS Big Three on multiple occasions. (and mitigate his occasional
And he’s done so while putting on on-court meltdowns), but Kyrgios
“I haven’t had a coach for a show nearly every time he steps only knows one way to play:
about five years now,” says Nick on the court, hitting cheeky like himself. “I’m just on my own
Kyrgios, the 26-year-old Aussie underhand serves, in-between- wavelength, man. I don’t really
tennis star whose untamed the-legs returns, and smashing give a fuck about what the media
playing style has made him volleys that rival top basketball says or anything like that. I’m just
one of the most controversial stars in flamboyance. (He says he’s trying to be better every day.…
players in the sport’s history. always wanted to bridge the gap I just always wanted to be myself
Kyrgios has a booming serve and a between the “exciting” NBA and out there.” — S A M U E L H I N E
fearsome forehand, weapons that “boring” tennis.) Coaches tried to
have helped him take down the straighten him out for years

Cam He’s the NFL’s most defiant provocateur, the modern Black Luis
Suárez
Newton quarterback who set American football on fire. A man like
that is bound to come with a slew of haters, but Newton smiles It wasn’t just the biting, as
shocking as it was to see
through it all. “Around Cam, there’s an immediate gravity Uruguayan footballer Luis Suárez
attack the shoulder of
and energy you haven’t felt before,” says ex-teammate Marshall Newhouse. the Italian Giorgio Chiellini
like a plate of ribs during the
“If you’re around football long enough, you grow up expecting this corporate, 2014 World Cup – the third such
time he had chomped down on
CEO type at quarterback. That’s what most owners want, someone buttoned-up the opposition. It was also the
dramatic diving. And the devilish
and mostly white. But Cam? Cam just broke the mould.” —T Y L E R R. T Y N E S hand ball at the 2010 World Cup
that denied Ghana a sure goal
and led to Uruguay’s quarter-final
victory. And the racially charged
row with Manchester United’s
Patrice Evra that earned him an
eight-game ban. Off the pitch, he
was shy, sweet even; on the pitch,
he transformed into something
else entirely, something even his
wife didn’t recognise. “He was as
close as world football has had
for a long time to a WWF-level
wrestling heel,” Roger Bennett
told GQ. “But a wrestling heel
capable of sublime moments of
otherworldly football domination.”
Suárez won the European Golden
Shoe twice, interrupting Ronaldo
and Messi’s stranglehold on
the award, but you could never
be sure what you would get – a
wonder goal or something
more sinister. “There is a sense
in South American football that
the ends justify the means,” said
Bennett. “It was the mental side
of his game, the garra charrúa,
the warrior spirit, that would take
him to some pretty dark places.”

—ERIC WILLS

FEBRUARY 2022 GQ 147

KimiRäikkönen MICHVAIECLK He was the first Black quarterback to be drafted at number
one in NFL history; he was also the first number one quar-
“Iceman is his nickname, because terback draft pick to go to prison, on charges of dog fight-
he comes from Finland, a cold ing, at the height of his career. So go the contradictions of
place, but he also seemed a fairly Michael Vick, a one-off in sporting history: still the most
cold person. This is the kid who electric athlete to ever play the position but fated to be
turned up giving monosyllabic
answers as part of his disdain remembered by some for other reasons entirely. Vick played with swagger and style
for the press, who was fast
asleep half an hour before his and grace; he drove opponents to insanity and beyond. There was no defence for him,
first qualifying session. He joked
about taking a shit when Michael except what he would do to himself – and even then, after 14 months in prison, he was
Schumacher was being given a
lifetime achievement award, but still able to return to the game, reformed, humbled but unbowed, and once again make
it underplays how seriously he
took it. He had a singular focus, grown men look silly. LeSean McCoy, a teammate of Vick’s in Philadelphia, remem-
which was to drive cars as fast
as humanly possible. The other bers his arrival in the city. “There would be so many protesters outside the stadium,”
bullshit? He never had any time for
it. Formula 1 hasn’t seen anyone McCoy says. “But once he started playing? It’s funny how the world works – they soon
like him since James Hunt. All
Ferrari drivers usually have to learn forgot about all of that.” — Z A C H B A R O N
Italian so they can speak to the
Italian press. Kimi never bothered Charles KIMI RÄIKKÖNEN: CLIVE MASON/GET TY IMAGES SPORT/GET TY IMAGES. MICHAEL VICK:
so he could never be forced into Barkley BRIAN FINKE, GQ, 2003. CHARLES BARKLEY: THE SPORTING NEWS/GETTY IMAGES.
talking to them. He went and drove
rally for a bit and famously would He brawled with Shaquille O’Neal
have the car in a ditch or in a tree on the basketball court in 1999;
within the first 150m. He was off the court he pushed a man
all or nothing.” — W I L L B U X TO N half his size through a window of a
Florida bar. Charles Barkley always
148 GQ FEBRUARY 2022 seemed intent on proving that
his infamous not-a-role-model
Nike campaign wasn’t just
a slogan. But in retirement the
former superstar has managed to
up the ante with his unrepentant
provocations. On his gambling:
“I want to be dead broke when
I keel over. I don’t want to leave
all that money for my freeloading
family.” On the Golden State
Warriors: “I’m never going to like
that little girly basketball where
you have to outscore people.”
As Kenny Smith, his Inside the
NBA co-host, told GQ: “He can say
things that other people can’t say.
I know where he stands, even
when he’s not standing with me.”

— ERIC WILLS

JOHN DALY: STEPHEN MUNDAY/ALLSPORT. GABRIEL MEDINA: ED SLOANE/WORLD SURF John “That guy was Happy Gilmore” is how No Laying Up podcast host Gabriel Medina
LEAGUE. PETE ROSE: FOCUS ON SPORT/GET TY IMAGES. ALL: GET TY IMAGES. Daly Chris Solomon describes the blond bomber John Daly. Raised in
rural Arkansas, in the US midwest, Daly was a hell-raiser from the Surfers are typically a chilled
moment he entered the golf world’s consciousness. “He came in bunch, the kind of people
genetically predisposed to lounge
with a mullet and a moustache,” Solomon notes, as the final alter- in the sun with guitars and toke on
a decent spliff. But occasionally
nate for the 1991 PGA Championship field. He drove overnight to get there on time, an apex predator emerges from
the haze – a guy like three-time
and then won the thing with a howitzer of a swing that revolutionised the sport. world title winner Gabriel Medina,
who is beloved in his native
“People think Bryson [DeChambeau] blows the field away today – he blew the field Brazil and despised just about
everywhere else. On land he’s
away more then than Bryson does, which is jarring to think,” Solomon says. And Daly a smiley 28-year-old who likes
video games. But in the water he’s
did it with his own unique brand of panache: “Hitting balls shirtless or off of beer a ruthless competitor. Take the
2017 Pipe Masters. His opponent,
cans” in practice or rocketing drives inches over the heads of fans in the grandstand. Kelly Slater, was standing in the
barrel of an enormous back door
He’s still finding ways to upset the golf establishment: each year, come Masters time, wave on which he could have
scored a perfect 10. So Medina
Daly stations his motorhome in the car park of a strip joint just down the road from did something highly tactical – or
highly unsportsmanlike. He burned
the world’s most esteemed country club, where he autographs just about anything put Slater – his idol – by dropping
in front of him. The two almost
in front of him. In 2019, Augusta National bought the land that the strip club sits on. collided, ending Slater’s chances
of scoring enough points to prevail.
But Daly isn’t going anywhere just yet. — S A M S C H U B E Medina won the heat, but fans
were incensed, branding him a
disgrace. “I could be going against
my best friends. I’m there to win,”
Medina once said. “It’s in my
blood.” — C H R I S G AYO M A L I

PETE ROSE every freaking day. And when I a bet. I bet on baseball. That’s
managed the Reds, my goal every not my legacy. My legacy is I won
“What do I have – 26 or 27 major night was to win the damn game. more games than anybody, got
league records? The best record See, I picked the wrong vice. If I’d more hits than anybody, scored
I have is playing in 1,972 winning done drugs, they’d have given me more runs than anybody. I was
games. Someone’s gonna win a second chance. But I gambled. at a banquet the other night and
and someone’s gonna lose. I was wrong, no question. I made a guy asked me, ‘What do you
My philosophy is: let the other a mistake. But everybody makes think you’d hit if you were playing
guys lose. A lot of guys played mistakes. The penalty don’t fit the today?’ I said, ‘Probably .228
hard, don’t get me wrong. But crime. I’ve been suspended over to .235.’ And he said, ‘Wow, the
I played different than most guys. 31 years. I’ve heard of guys that pitchers are that good?’ I said,
Not three days a week, not five killed somebody and they’re out of ‘No, I’m 80 fucking years old.’ ”
days a week – I played different jail after 20 years. I’m still in jail.
Thirty-one years. ’Cause I made —BASEBALL STAR PETE ROSE,

AS TOLD TO CLAY SKIPPER

FEBRUARY 2022 GQ 149

Asashōryū Jack The mere sight of Jack Lambert – as unsettling as any Bond villain THIS PAGE: ASASHŌRYŪ AKINORI, SANKEI; JOHN MCENROE, MIKE MALONEY MONTE FRESCO/MIRRORPIX; JACK LAMBERT, TONY
Akinori Lambert with his toothless maw, thinning hair, and spit-flying intensity – TOMSIC/GETTY IMAGES SPORT CLASSIC. OPPOSITE PAGE: SONNY BILL WILLIAMS, SANDRA MU/STRINGER; DETROIT PISTONS,
once made a Broncos rookie named John Elway wonder whether NATHANIEL S. BUTLER/NBAE; BRAD MARCHAND, STEVE BABINEAU/NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE. ALL: GET TY IMAGES.
It took only four years for his own true calling was to be an accountant. Terrorizer of quarter-
Asashōryū Akinori – a young
Mongolian man with the agility backs everywhere, Lambert embraced his odious image: During a Monday night game
and fighting spirit of a prey-
hungry wolf – to rise to the top of in 1974, the Steelers lineman and Ohio native announced that he hailed from the fic-
the deeply traditional Japanese
world of sumo. Known for his tional town of Buzzard’s Breath, Wyoming. After flattening Brian Sipe along the side-
impassioned outbursts, his
gutsy poses in the ring, and his line a few years later (the first of two fine-inducing hits on the Cleveland quarterback),
struggles outside of it, Asashōryū
was a far cry from the image of Lambert famously declared that if they wanted better protection, quarterbacks should
the yokozuna, or sumo master, as
a man of restraint and discipline. wear dresses. In retirement he guarded his privacy with the same intensity that ani-
Yet his dynamic fighting style
and carefree smile drew in mated his Hall of Fame career: “Jack would rather wrestle a rattlesnake than talk to
countless people – even the
elders who relentlessly criticised a reporter,” one neighbour told a journalist who came knocking. GQ left a voicemail
his impropriety came to regard
him as a natural-born charmer. asking Lambert if he had any comment about his inclusion on this list. Naturally, he did
Twelve years have passed since
his sudden retirement, and the not return the call. — E R I C W I L L S
sport still misses the sense
of possibility and surprise he
brought to it. “I’ve been told to be
dignified, to be refined,” he once
said. “But once I stepped into the
ring, I felt like I had to be an ogre.”

— KEIGO AMEMIYA

JOHN tennis matches ever played. That in difficult conditions; there is
McENROE was, and is, McEnroe: an enfant no one to ask for help, no one to
terrible (the All England Club pick you up when you cannot pick
You cannot be serious! It’s declined to offer him membership, up yourself. The best players are
the title of John McEnroe’s as is customarily extended to separated from each other less by
autobiography, the punchline champions). But New Yorker ability than by will. Can you find
in his commercials now, and McEnroe was also among the most the intensity inside yourself? Can
occasionally, when prompted, dogged athletes ever to walk the you maintain it? Now 62, McEnroe
he’ll say it from the broadcast face of this earth. If you beat him, always could – and, maybe more
booth. McEnroe originally yelled he was coming back. And he was than any other athlete, he let you
it during a Wimbledon match, in coming back for blood. He was the see it. We loved him and hated
1981, during a tournament that quintessential anti-hero: crowds him because he made the ugliness
he’d go on to win, beating Björn loved to boo him; his greatness and the fire that fuelled his talent
Borg after losing to the Swede the was inseparable from the angry, visible, tangible, unavoidable.
year before in one of the greatest abusive intensity that produced it. To watch him was to learn just how
Tennis is a lonely, solitary, brutally hard, and how transcendent, it is
difficult sport, played over hours to win. — Z A C H B A R O N

150 GQ FEBRUARY 2022

SONNYBILL The Bad Boys When I think of Detroit, I think of an ass whippin’, at
WILLIAMS
Detroit Pistons least when it comes to basketball. Michael Jordan
In the final of the 2015 Rugby might, too. And Motor City’s blue-collar edge is still
World Cup, at Twickenham, New best personified by the Pistons of the late ’80s and
Zealand’s strapping forward
Sonny Bill Williams made an early ’90s, still the league’s ultimate Bad Boys. Their line-up was a murderers’ row of
audacious move. Receiving the
ball on the halfway line, Williams hard men – Dennis Rodman, Bill Laimbeer, Isiah Thomas. But they were also winners
burst forward, drawing five burly
Aussies into his orbit. He waited in a town that had often lost. “For a city of hardworking people that got hit real hard,
for his opponents to close right
in, and with a delicate flick we brought light to the city,” says John Salley, a power forward who won back-to-
of his giant wrists, offloaded
the ball into the hands of his back NBA championships with the Pistons in 1989 and 1990. Yet Salley says he and
dreadlocked teammate Ma’a
Nonu, who charged into clear air his cohorts were also proud of being pariahs outside of Motown. “When they show
to score a decisive try. It was a
flashy move, and the teeming you a cowboy movie,” he says, “the bad guy is always the best-dressed and the one
fans in the stands thundered
in exaltation. It was also the you remember.” — T Y L E R R . T Y N E S
most sublime execution of “the
offload” – a signature Sonny Bill BradMarchand least three separate occasions.
Williams move – which until that “The guy had his face in my face,
moment, the rugby orthodoxy Slashing. Trash-talking. Tripping. so I just figured that would piss
had disparaged as showing off If it gets under an opponent’s him off,” Marchand offers by
and risky, akin to an Allen Iverson skin, the Boston Bruins winger way of explanation. (Spoiler: it
behind-the-back pass. Today, the has probably done it, earning did!) He claims his pesky brand
offload is recognised as a vital him a reputation for being the of antagonism is mostly behind
component of the modern game, game’s foremost psycho. At a him, partly because it’s hard to
and Williams stands vindicated. 2012 White House visit, even get away with, thanks to all the
“If I hadn’t backed myself and President Obama, diplomatic as cameras, and partly because he
pushed the boundaries, would I he is, referred to Brad Marchand doesn’t need it any more.
have achieved what I did?” asks as the “Little Ball of Hate.” (“I “It’s stuff I had to do early on to
the All Blacks legend. “When no thought that was awesome,” get established and try to earn
one expects it, big plays in big says Marchand, now in his 12th a spot on the team and make
matches change the course of season with the Bruins.) In 2020, a name for myself, whereas now
the game.” — C H E K U R R I E N his fellow players concurred, I am established and I’ve had
voting him the dirtiest player in a successful career,” he says on
the league. Sometimes it’s sneaky a day he’s serving a three-game
wallops to the back of opponents’ suspension, the seventh of his
legs; sometimes it’s licking their career, for intentionally swiping a
faces, which he’s done on at player’s legs out from underneath
him. — C L AY S K I P P E R

FEBRUARY 2022 GQ 151

With only a single
breath, Alexey
Molchanov,
history’s most
daring freediver,
is reaching
improbable
depths – and
discovering
a new kind of
enlightenment
as he conquers
one of the world’s
wildest sports.

BY DANIEL RILEY
PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAAN VERHOEVEN

152 GQ FEBRUARY 2022

Alexey Molchanov at Dean’s Blue Hole in the Bahamas.

FEBRUARY 2022 GQ 153

only the inverse. That’s one way to think of
what he’s doing: Free Solo but for drowning.
Free Solo but down. And no one alive goes down
like Alexey Molchanov.

For all the complex techniques required to talk about this thing… every diver who’s gone 2. DOWN
succeed, the objective is remarkably simple: go truly deep sounds like those rarest of individ- Long Island, Bahamas, looks from above like
as deep as you can go on one breath and return uals who’ve seen the earth from the moon, or a seagull in the sky of a child’s drawing. It is
to the surface without passing out or dying. died and been resuscitated. long, low-lying, rustic, remote. It is buttressed
by a water so Bahamian blue the colour looks
This is the point of freediving. At least the The seemingly unique techniques of freediv- borrowed from the nation’s flag. There are
competitive point. And here in the Bahamas, ing, then, translate beyond the bounds of freed- roadside grills and whitewashed churches
42 divers from around the world have gathered, iving. To other sports, to work, to relationships and goats strolling the highway and hurricane
like iron filings to a magnet, at a geological with colleagues and friends and family. There damage stretching back many hurricanes. It is
marvel called a blue hole, in this case a 200m are, it turns out, benefits to better breathing, hot. Here is where the Tropic of Cancer passes
elevator shaft of ocean water, to see how many to masterful body control, and to pursuing the through. If you can picture that bird in the sky,
stories they can plunge themselves down. state of mindfulness that is required to plunge right where the wings come together there is a
to unfathomable depths without freaking pitted dirt road to a secluded cove, and in that
The competition, Vertical Blue, is the the fuck out and accidentally killing yourself. cove, a blue hole.
Wimbledon of freediving, summoning the plan- “There is a part of freediving,” the world’s best
et’s best to battle in perhaps the most amenable freediver, 34-year-old Alexey Molchanov of Dean’s Blue Hole sits within a natural amphi-
freediving waters in the world. As the event’s Russia, says, “that can be useful for everyone.” theatre of scrub and rock, about 15m off a
founder, 41-year-old New Zealander William secluded beach. Today, people are watching the
Trubridge, who’s spent a lifetime scouring the Like other activities in which the sublime action from those rocks, and from the surface of
earth’s surface for conducive spots to go deep, is sought, danger is an animating feature. the water, and from well beneath, down in the
put it to me: “You could not design a better Blackouts are frequent, especially at shal- hole. It is day four of Vertical Blue, and Alexey
place for freediving if you sat down with pen low depths, even for the most skilled divers. is attempting to break one of his own world
and paper.” Pressure, which builds as one goes deeper, can records – in a discipline called Constant Weight
rupture the soft tissues of the ears, throat, and – with a dive of 131m. In Constant Weight, com-
But this is more than the pinnacle compe- lungs if not properly managed. The risks are petitors can dive with the assistance of a small
tition of a sport. Yes, the divers here devote deceptive. There is a temptation to go deeper amount of weight and the fin, or fins, on their
their lives to the pursuit of record depths, but before one is ready, which means that even the feet. This is the deepest dive that anyone will
they also dedicate themselves to a novel way of world’s best tend to bite off only incremental attempt in the nine days of Vertical Blue. It is
interacting with this world and its oceans – and gains in depth. There are no shortcuts in free- the deepest any diver has ever attempted in the
of being alive, of breathing. They come from diving; no cheat codes to water pressure, buoy- history of the competition.
Italy and Japan and New Zealand and Peru. ancy, and gravity.
They live and train in Sardinia and Okinawa Alexey bobs vertically in the water. He is
and Cyprus and Tulum. They compete in the At the surface, after reacquainting with the maskless but he has just affixed his nose clip.
glorious depths of the waters of Egypt, Turkey, air, there can be loss of motor skills, uncontrol- His golden wetsuit clings tightly to his head
Honduras and Greece. They prepare together, lable shaking, blackouts, blood. Death is rare, and his body. Though he may be better known
rent shared houses on the road, often fall into but ever present. At this same competition in for the capabilities of his lungs and his brain,
bed with one another, and occasionally marry. the Bahamas eight years ago, a young American his body is different from many other bodies in
They are specialised professionals but don’t from Brooklyn who was quickly ascending the freediving, as well. He is just short of six feet
really make any money; their sport hasn’t yet ranks of the world’s elite divers (perhaps too tall, bald, and looks as squat as a Soviet boxer.
hit the big time. But no matter: to spend time quickly, some say) died in this very cove, above There is no ideal body shape in freediving but
in their midst is to start to realise that they are this very blue hole. Safety protocols are always many of the divers at Vertical Blue are as long
after something greater, something sublime. improving, but the spectre lingers. and lithe as distance runners. Alexey’s legs are
like fire hydrants. On more than one occasion,
Freediving is, after all, a lifelong opportunity It is not a stretch to suggest that when we I overhear other divers describe his backside as
to radically reshape one’s body and mind in humans deliberately cut off our access to oxy- “meaty.” He is a unit. He sticks out.
the process. In pursuing depth, humans must gen, and then exert ourselves in athletic per-
train their lungs and brains to unlock secret formance, we are inviting disaster, or at least Fans and fellow divers hang on the floating
sources of clarity and strength and oxygen and tempting fate. And yet this is what it’s all about. PVC pipe that delineates mere civilian waters
potential that are hidden in the body. They are When we tempt fate in this way, our bodies and from the “competition zone” above the blue
secrets that, once revealed, make the divers not minds surprise us. This is the allure of the prac- hole. All around are tanned chests, taut arms,
just more effective at their craft, they argue, tice of freediving. and high butts bobbing at the surface. There
but more effective, conscious, skilful, and is stillness. No current, no breeze. There is a
thoughtful as human beings. There is a shift in There is, though, also the allure of records. palpable buzz all around. The safety chief asks
perspective. A global realignment within one’s The raw number. How deep can we go as a the crowd to quieten down. But Alexey will not
consciousness. The look in their eyes when they species? Today, there is one diver who goes the notice us, anyway – not us nor the commenta-
deepest, who blends the physical and meta- tors floating on that platform nor the cameras
physical like no one else in the sport. Watching in his face nor the implications of his attempt.
Alexey dive can be dangerously disorientating. He is already on the way to another realm.
Seemingly anyone else attempting what he
does would die. It is like watching the world’s When Alexey was younger, his mother,
best rock climber scale a sheer face with ease, Natalia Molchanova, was the world’s best
freediver, a distinction that she held for many
years. She was a pioneer in the sport and the
practitioner of a mind-and-body-control tech-
nique called “attention deconcentration.”

154 GQ FEBRUARY 2022

Freediving seemed to a young Alexey
like a door to another world – a life of
“travels and adventures. With dolphins
and sea lions and whales and sharks.”

FEBRUARY 2022 GQ 155

She passed her secrets to her son, who per- dioxide in the system. Bodies react differently, lunar module approaches the moon. “110…
fected them and uses the regimen to reach a but among less advanced divers there is often 120… touchdown!” The crowd claps, cheers,
state of intense calm. By doing so, he can slow an involuntary panic that sets in, convulsions splashes. At the end of the dive line he is half-
his heart rate, his metabolic rate, while simul- or contractions; an internal spasm by the cells way home, but halfway is always as far from
taneously slowing the activity of his brain and and alveoli (tiny air sacs in the lungs, through breathing as you can be.
his body. His focus deepens. He relaxes to the which oxygen is taken into the blood), which
point of seeming asleep. He takes deep, drowsy scream for fresh air. And yet, if you pass 3. MOTHER
breaths, like a summer breeze filling a sail. through this traumatic phase, on the other side During the five days that Alexey and I spend
there is one of those unlocked secrets of the together in the Bahamas, the question that
The judges count him down to the start of his body: more oxygen. If pushed to its limit in this makes him most uncomfortable is not whether
dive: One minute… way, the body flips a switch, part of the mam- he ever worries about blacking out 120m
malian diving reflex, like toggling to a reserve beneath breathable air, but about whether he
His jaw is slack. His eyes are half-mast. He is tank of gas. It is just one of the body’s many might one day have to give up the vagabond
there, but not there. The breaths fill his enor- extraordinary automatic mechanisms for stav- existence he’s cultivated – moving to dive spots
mous lungs, which he’s worked to accommo- ing off death – drowning, asphyxiation, brain for weeks or months at a time. “I’m not thinking
date over years by developing flexibility in his damage, whatever – and one of the mechanisms in the categories of really settling somewhere,”
rib cage and chest. You know how stretching a that freedivers train to exploit. Blood begins to he says, on the porch of the house he’s renting
balloon makes it easier to blow up? Alexey has flow in from the extremities to the core, to the with his wife and infant son and some other
been doing something like that for the past 20 lungs and vital organs, drawing limited oxygen divers for several weeks. “I can just go some-
years – stretching out the balloons of his lungs away from less critical body parts to those nec- where, live somewhere for a month.” Just as
to maximise their capacity to hold air. essary to sustain life. Alexey can feel the capil- he’s doing here. “Since I finished university,
laries in his lungs expand and the capillaries in I haven’t spent more than five, six months at
With one hand, he holds the dive line – a his extremities constrict. A warming occurs all home in Moscow.”
long cable that marks the path down the blue over. A bear hug from the depths.
hole. The dive line serves two primary pur- That these divers orientate their lives around
poses: to lead the diver to their depth; and to For Alexey, at around 30m the buoyancy the oceans, around the planet’s best spots to
pull the diver up by a winch, as though they shifts to negative and he begins to free-fall. dive, around these long competitions, is a mat-
are a hooked fish, if he or she blacks out on Alexey relaxes his body further. With his arms ter of course. They move around the world at
their way down or up. Once the judges’ count- down at his sides to reduce drag, he starts significant cost and with little in the manner of
down reaches zero, Alexey fills his lungs with plummeting to the bottom of the ocean. There sponsorship and prize money. They are simply
one great inhalation, and then begins to sip is a long, warm embrace and a drift toward in pursuit of these pure experiences: it is, like
little mouthfuls of air that he compresses on nothingness in a sort of zero G. It is a physical surfing specific breaks or claiming particular
top of his already full lungs. It’s like putting manifestation of his mental state. Calmness. peaks, a devotional framework for one’s life.
another shirt in an already stuffed suitcase, Stillness. Barely-there-ness. There are dream-
then another shirt, and then upwards of, say, like contours to the plunge. At dinner one night, Alexey shows me a
30 more shirts. This advanced method is, natu- marine navigation app he uses to look for
rally, called packing. Once Alexey can pack no At 45m: a second alarm. Alexey can hear it new sites to chase depth. Most places on the
longer, it’s time. He rolls over into a dolphin clear as a bell, thanks to the acoustics of the planet we scroll over he seems to have been to
dive, his head disappears beneath the surface, deep. The notification means that his freefall before. This was the dream: to see the world,
and the large monofin that he wears on his feet has reached its maximum speed and his lungs to encounter the ocean’s riches, to experience
shoots straight up in the air, lightly spraying are compressed to almost one-sixth of their things no other human has – it’s what drew
the spectators on the pipe. size at the surface. The oxygen is no less than it Alexey to freediving from the start.
was up there. It’s just taking up a much smaller
From the edge of the competition zone, a amount of space, as gases can and do. He is rac- Alexey grew up in southernmost Russia, in
spectator can, at this point, dip beneath the ing towards the bottom, neither accelerating Volgograd (“the old name is Stalingrad”), and,
surface and watch the sleek form in its golden nor decelerating. He is equalising all the way, like many busy children of the 90s, his schedule
wetsuit plunge toward the abyss. Alexey takes but his mind is empty. His fin works as a rudder, was packed with activities. Swimming and vio-
several big dolphin kicks, his powerful legs moving subtly to hold the absolute vertical of lin and chess and taekwondo. He marvels at the
working like the first stage of a rocket. He is his position. He is goggle-less and his eyes are way his parents balanced that life for him with-
fighting the positive buoyancy at the surface, still half-mast. There but not there. out pushing too hard on any one pursuit. He
the thing that keeps us afloat in the sea and chose swimming and, as a teen, went to Saint
returns us to the surface after a shallow dive. A third alert sounds as he approaches his Petersburg for a swim-focused boarding school,
Alexey eats up that depth quickly, and then, at attempted depth, marked by a plate at the bot- a thrilling and impactful first taste of life away
around 20m, he vanishes from view altogether. tom of the dive line. Three metres short of the from home, followed by university in Moscow.
plate, the line goes from white to striped, let- There, Alexey transitioned from competitive
At 22m, a small alarm from Alexey’s watch ting Alexey know he is close. All around him, swimming to freediving. He’d been doing
signals to him that it’s time to transfer reserves it has been lightless for some time, except for
of air from his lungs into his mouth and neck so the light from the lamp on his head. If it were “Instead of focusing
that he can equalise his ears as he goes deeper. to go out, he would not be able to see his hand on the importance of
Alexey is doing that once every few seconds in front of his face. Given that he’s not breath- an event, I switch to
during the first 20m, preempting the change in ing, there’s no real sound either. Just: a sensory focusing on how much
pressure, which comes quickly. In the first 10m, oblivion. Spooky stuff. I enjoy deep diving, and
the pressure doubles. By 20m, it’s trebled. To how much I enjoy the
combat the mounting pressure, Alexey heeds At the bottom plate, he grabs a tag – a sym- process. I’m doing this
his alarm and moves air to his neck and mouth bolic gesture to signify that he’s been here, like because I like it.”
and pushes his tongue toward his eardrums. the seizing of a shell off the ocean floor – rolls
All this while remaining utterly calm, present, forward, executes a simple turn, and with one
unthinking, practically catatonic. tug on the rope, thrusts himself back towards
the surface. Up there, in the Bahamian daylight,
There is a moment not much deeper into the judges have been tracking Alexey’s descent,
the dive when the body realises that it is not counting depth off like mission control as the
getting oxygen the way that it usually does.
This is, in part, the effect of the elevated carbon

156 GQ FEBRUARY 2022

“Mindset,” says Alexey, is
everything. “I can make this
whole dive super hard or super

successful just by having
a different perspective.”

FEBRUARY 2022 GQ 157

something like it all his life, even if he didn’t to her tenets of diving and deconcentration. controls his mind and his body with totality.
call it that – swimming and diving as early Those techniques provide anyone with ways to At 40m, a safety diver meets Alexey in the
as three, messing around with breath holds breathe better, to go deeper more safely, and to
on holidays to the Black Sea not long after. It expand one’s capacity to operate without air. blue hole. At 30m, he’s joined by another. They
hadn’t occurred to him that he might build his But, in a broader sense, they also give individu- dive to his depth, get close to him, but not too
life around diving. “But one day,” he says, “I saw als tools to stare life’s gravest challenges in the close – they don’t want to cause lost focus. They
these articles in magazines about freediving face and not look away. watch Alexey’s face for signals of distress, and
competitions. And trips. It wasn’t just a sport, kick up alongside him to the surface.
the way it was presented, it was already this When Alexey teaches these skills, they are
whole lifestyle. Of travels and adventures. With not theoretical. They are techniques, after all, At 20m, the spectators watching from above
dolphins and sea lions and whales and sharks.” that come from a man whose mother disap- with their faces in the water spot Alexey’s form
It was a specific grand way of experiencing the peared from this world while doing the very emerging from the abyss, shrouded by the
world, of living in the world, of orientating thing he’s devoted his life to. At one point, as blurred motion of the safety divers. Positive
his life around this new thing that he could be I alluded to, I asked Alexey if he ever gets con- buoyancy has returned and it begins to lift
extraordinary at. sumed by the risks, the potential implications, him. He slows himself down but still breaches
of a dive gone wrong. “Statistically,” he says, “it’s the surface with tremendous force, popping up
His mother had caught on only a little ear- very safe. When you have this strength and con- like a rubber ball held underwater. He grabs the
lier. Natalia was, like Alexey, a competitive nection between your mind and body, you have line and the air rushes from his body. He fills
swimmer, but only took up freediving when this awareness, a sense of if you’re at the limit.” his lungs with fresh air in forceful draws, his
she was 40, after a challenging divorce from But was there ever a moment, in the wake of “active inhales.” If a diver blacks out, it’s usually
Alexey’s father. By her 50th birthday, she had what happened to his mother, I asked, when he at this moment.
set numerous world records in various disci- had hesitation about carrying on? “Sometimes
plines. “Many people, when they reach 50, they when I had blackouts and other traumas, she Once Alexey emerges, he has 15 seconds to
think life is over,” she said. “I want to show was worried for me and wanted me to stop,” meet the surface protocol. He must show the
them, there is more they can do.” The next year, he says. “But I didn’t want to. I wanted to con- judges that he is OK (by flashing an OK sign).
in 2013, she broke the world record in five disci- tinue.” He wanted to go deeper. He must keep his airways above the water. He
plines. Concurrent to her development, Natalia must flash the tag he grabbed at depth. And he
established a freediving school in Moscow. 4. UP must not pass out. He can cough up blood from
When Alexey graduated from university and Alexey is unaware of what’s happening at the a torn lung. He can produce pink foam or his
threw himself into the sport, he worked side by surface on his world-record attempt at Vertical lips can turn blue. But if he meets protocol, the
side with his mother, first at the school, then in Blue. He is unaware of anything at all except dive is good.
their business, Molchanovs, which mostly sold the hug at depth. His mind has retreated and
wetsuits and fins. (The logo, a fish tail designed his body has taken over. He is flying through Alexey looks strong. In complete control. He
by Alexey, is also two Ms: “The big m is my mum space in the opposite direction now, but what receives a white card from the judges. The dive
and the little m is me.”) are directions in the black? counts. It is yet another world record. The large
crowd, which had to be implored not to put too
Natalia was regarded as a sort of sage in On the way up, his arms are in an aero- much weight on the PVC pipe of the competi-
the sport. “Freediving is not only sport,” she dynamic position over his head. He kicks tion zone so as not to sink it, erupts with cheers
once said, “it’s a way to understand who we calmly with his monofin, focusing all his efforts and splashes.
are. When we go down, if we don’t think, we on efficient and economical movement. He is
understand we are whole. We are one with the fighting negative buoyancy now. Any extra As Alexey swims away toward the recovery
world.” Through deconcentration, a form of tension can eat up energy and precious oxygen. platform, the safety chief yells over to him
advanced meditation she described as having The whole game is this balance of action and jovially: “Alexey, what is your secret?!”
evolved from techniques used by ancient war- inaction. Of optimal motion.
riors, she could reset her mind and feel more Alexey is huffing for air still, unable to speak.
prepared to take on the world. But in 2015, He has been underwater for two-and-a-half “You won’t disclose!”
during a presumably routine training dive minutes now. This is nowhere near as long as he Alexey catches his breath and smiles.
near the Mediterranean island of Formentera, can last. He has a personal static apnea record “I won’t disclose….”
she disappeared. She never resurfaced – just (holding breath in a pool) of 8 mins 33 seconds
literally vanished into the sea. Her presence officially, and nine minutes in training. But in 5. THE SECRET; OR THE PHYSICALITY
hovers above freediving and freedivers, and motion, one’s capacity for breath hold is usually OF NOWNESS
naturally, her legacy lives on most urgently only half what it is sitting still, and, anyway, But, in fact, he is happy to disclose. Just as
through Alexey, who remains in charge of the from the surface it feels like he’s been down Denzel Washington is willing to tell you how
school and business, and serves as the conduit there for an eternity. He climbs and climbs, he acts without worrying that you’re going to
and the judges begin to count him back to the steal his roles. It’s easy to share secrets when
The techniques Alexey surface. Fifty metres… 40 metres… you know no one can do what you can do with
has mastered provide the information.
anyone with ways This is where divers can get into trouble.
to breathe better – They are climbing and they are starting to Learning to control one’s breathing is
but they also give feel the effects of their breathlessness. When important, but so is learning to control one’s
individuals tools to you sense that you’re out of oxygen, you might mind. Oxygen deprivation is, after all, Alexey
stare life’s gravest start to feel tired, your legs might start to get says, one of the most physiologically stressful
challenges in the face lactic, and it’s natural to want to speed up or things we can experience in life. When every
and not look away. tense up. But tensing up, particularly in the bit of our body starts to scream for air, it sur-
shoulders and neck, can restrict blood flow, faces our fears. It emphasises our proximity
and right now Alexey needs especially good to death. Our pulse increases. Panic sets in.
blood flow to the lungs and brain. This is the Every reaction we are trying to suppress rears
discipline: resisting the overreaction, suppress- itself with fangs. The test is what we will do in
ing the desperate move, balancing the need to that moment.
rush toward the surface with a calmness that
keeps one from overriding the strategy. Alexey For Alexey, the goal is to sink into that chal-
lenge, that panic, and maintain the focus, the
stillness, the meditation, even as it only gets
harder to do so. The whole thing is a test of
faith: Do I believe that I have more oxygen on

158 GQ FEBRUARY 2022

There are benefits to better breathing, to
masterful body control, and to pursuing
mindfulness that is required to plunge to
unfathomable depths without freaking

out and accidentally killing yourself.

the other side of this stress? Do I believe that I “Some people have the thing in the water that most of our bodies
will be OK? Our minds are sharpened by facing only focused on the revolt against most violently. If you can learn
that test of faith and ultimately passing through coughing up blood, the to handle that trial, you can learn to focus your
to the other side, where there are, it turns out, blacking out. But it’s way through a penalty kick or a presentation
reserves of oxygen and an even deeper state of like motor racing: if you to the partners or a live TV appearance or a job
focus, stillness, and calm. “Learning how to were to just focus on the interview. We can remind ourselves that we’ve
deal with it,” Alexey says, “gives us this men- crashes, you wouldn’t put ourselves in that position, said yes to the
tal strength and focus with other challenging be telling the full story.” opportunity, pushed ourselves to the outer lim-
things that happen in our lives – for them to its of our comfort zone, and done so willingly.
feel less important to us, and less provoking.” (because it does not exist). Only nowness,
only hereness. There is nothing beyond the I ask if he is ever fearful, ever nervous, if he
What Alexey has discovered is a way of play- body, the breathing, the intense focus of the ever gets butterflies before a major competi-
ing with perspective. “I can,” he says, “make this next metre, centimetre, millimetre of depth. tion. “No. That’s something I learned over the
whole dive super hard or super successful, just The focal length of time and space shortens to years to control,” he says. “The thoughts that
by having a different perspective on the dive.” practically nothing. After thousands of training you don’t want to do this. Because this super
The key is to snap his attention back to the pres- dives, the body knows what it is meant to do, important moment comes. It can be whatever,
ent moment, to train his brain as vigorously but the mind is always threatening to wander. a dive, a presentation. And you feel sick because
as he can train his body to almost physically The key, he says, is physically pulling it back. of your thought process, where you don’t want
overcome his thoughts and hold his mind in Here. Now. Flatness. One dimension. Not even to do this because of this pressure. Will he do
a state of nothingness and nowness. “I feel a line, but a point. Nothing in front or behind, it? Will he meet others’ expectations? It’s a lack
how my attention can get broadened in time above or below or to the sides. Just this. We can of self-assurance in your abilities. But the shift
and space,” he says. “I can be thinking about all handle just this. should be: this is the area of my expertise. This
the future, I can be thinking about the past. is what I want to do. I have the current skills
All these thoughts everywhere. We have that a This is how one goes deep, lowers the heart that I have, I’ve prepared as much as I can, and I
lot in life. But if I was just to pull them back into rate, seems to practically fall asleep at the bot- will do the best that I can. But I do this because
the now moment, pull my thoughts back, really tom of a world-record-setting dive, while doing it’s my choice. Realising your potential is only
physically, that’s the technique that feels like a possible while being relaxed, while calm.
technique that can be learned. When I practise
it a lot, it’s like an arm movement. Physical. You “With a big event,” he says, “instead of focus-
just pull it back. And you get your attention to ing on the importance of an event, I switch to
the shortest possible time moment.” focusing on how much I enjoy deep diving,
and how much I enjoy the process. I’m doing
The past vanishes. The future does not exist this because I like it, and I know how to do this

FEBRUARY 2022 GQ 159

In pursuing depth, humans must train really well. I’m diving with this reason in mind.
their lungs and brains to unlock secret And I’m doing this because I want to. When I
sources of clarity, strength, oxygen and know I am capable of this, then I can really pull
potential hidden in the body in all my focus to the pleasure of it all.”

160 GQ FEBRUARY 2022 6. FAMILY
The pleasure of it all. It is a version of Alexey’s
story that connects each of the competitors at
Vertical Blue. These divers, in pursuit of both
depth and width of experience – of searching
the surface of this watery planet for miraculous
marine scapes, for blue holes.

At first, divers might go off in pairs, or little
packs. Spreading their wings, dusting off their
passports. But what a competition like Vertical
Blue does is serve as the great pilgrimage for all
serious comers. It brings this group of 42 divers
to this sparsely populated island of 3,000
(nearest town to Dean’s Blue Hole, popula-
tion: 86) together for a nine-day competition.
There is not much besides one another. There
are just a couple of restaurants open nearby.
There are more churches to attend on Sundays
than places to buy bottled water. Things can be
hard and a little lonely if you don’t find each
other. But they always do. This community.
It is addictive. The dives are one pleasure. The
family is another.

During my time in the Bahamas, I bump up
against the edges of this family. For example,
while waiting for Alexey to wake up from a nap
one afternoon, his housemate Arnaud Jerald
(the new Constant Weight Bi-Fins world-record
holder until Alexey breaks it five days later)
insists on making me an omelette and salad. He
is from Marseille, has been at this house near
the blue hole for a month, training and taking
pictures. He has grand designs for his life in the
sport, a plan to excite more high-end sponsors
into supporting freediving.

He just signed with Richard Mille – mak-
ing him one of the few freedivers to agree an
endorsement deal with a luxury-watch com-
pany. He shows me some underwater photos
that his partner, Charlotte, had just taken of
him in a polo walking on the edge of the blue
hole, like it was the surface of a distant planet.
He wants would-be sponsors to see what’s
possible with divers in the picture.

At a waterfront restaurant one night, sitting
at the bar and reading a book, I find myself sur-
rounded by a third of the field of divers. There
are groupings that I relish. Pods of nation-
alities. Clusters by age. A married couple.
A couple that might like to be married. I count
off the countries represented in my midst:
Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Chile, Turkey, Italy,
Slovenia, France, Tunisia, and Mexico.

On the beach each day are competitors, of
course, but there are also mothers and fathers
and sons and daughters. While a Czech diver
pursues records, her young daughter snorkels
in the shallows. The son of an Italian national-
record holder is well on his way to matching
his father’s tan. There are babies, too, like I’ve
never seen in the water. Naked little infants
squawking in the waves. You come this far for

this long, everyone comes with. At the restau- booth, adding some colour to the event’s live people calm down and find balance.” The
rant, I help Turkey’s top female diver, Sahika stream on YouTube. “Alexey’s been in incredi- Moscow school is a hit among business exec-
Ercumen, find some fish on the menu that isn’t ble form this whole competition,” he says. “He’s utives, entrepreneurs, and average Vlads. His
fried. She’s known Alexey since they were teen- really untouchable in pretty much all the disci- next target? New York. Imagine, then, next to
agers, “since he had hair,” she says, smiling. plines at this time.” the yoga studio and the climbing gym, a place
“2006, Tenerife. Natalia was there. We were to train in freediving breath techniques. It
kids, and now he has a baby.” They came up 7. NOW reminds me of something a newer diver said to
together, live in their respective corners of the Despite being the world’s best freediver, Alexey me on the beach at Dean’s Blue Hole one after-
world, but then, a few times a year, there are makes most of his money from the family busi- noon: “It’s hard to resist getting hooked. You
events like this one, with this family, where, ness. He’s turned down all sponsorship offers go down for four minutes, and you come up
Ercumen says, it’s just about “making these to this point, holding out instead for when the feeling like you’ve been sitting on a zafu pillow
memories together.” Ercumen had COVID last sport’s profile grows further. [meditation cushion] for two hours.”
year, was terrified about how it would react
with her asthma, what it would do to her lungs. Every once in a while, he’ll participate in an If Trubridge had been the steward of the
Over the course of her six dives, she set five new exhibition in Dubai where the winner gets a spirit of freediving all these years, then maybe
Turkish records. car – and then he’ll sell the car for cash. There’s Alexey could be the steward of its business
a real opportunity for luxury sponsors in the viability. They were both necessary. Trubridge
All gratitude for the annual family reunion sport, he says, but it’s slow. And so for now, had done extraordinary things to grow the
is owed to William Trubridge, the founder of everyone does their own thing. (Slovenian sport, but it had remained niche. Alexey had
Vertical Blue and one of freediving’s all-timers. Alenka Artnik, one of the world’s top female ambitions to make freediving big enough for
Alexey would ultimately break three of the four divers, is sponsored by, among others, a port his friends and fellow competitors to earn
world records in the competitive depth disci- and the Slovenian police.) Alexey knows that real money. To build it for the next generation.
plines at this year’s Vertical Blue, but the fourth the future – for the sport and his role in it – will To make freediving a thing not just for a global
is still held by Trubridge, in his speciality dis- be forged on several potential fronts. tour but also a thing for your bourgeois neigh-
cipline, Constant Weight No Fins. No Fins is bourhood. Yet despite his focus on the business
considered the purest of the dives, as it most First, a global tour. Like Formula 1 or the pro- potential for the sport, he is no less consumed
resembles the sort of purpose-driven plunges fessional tennis circuit. Can’t you see it? These by the beauty of it.
that humans have been taking for thousands beautiful coves and coastlines and island-fronts
of years, to spear fish, to scoop sponges and the world over, where there’s just enough depth The day I arrived in the Bahamas, I went to
pearls, to explore the ocean. for some world-record attempts and some the blue hole several times. It wasn’t all that
yachts to anchor up? It feels like the sport is one close to where I was staying, but I kept going
Raised in New Zealand, Trubridge moved breath-hold-obsessed billionaire away from a back all week, again and again, to watch other
to Long Island, not far from Dean’s Blue Hole, fully funded tour of Grands Prix, one luxury-car divers, or to sit on the beach with locals grilling
in 2006, to train. Since then, freediving and title sponsor away from a 10-event season in the seafood close by, just looking at those blues in
Vertical Blue have experienced a rapid evolu- Mediterranean, one viral Netflix documentary a lot of different lights. Well, that first night,
tion. By 2010, he had built a world-class com- away from becoming the world’s fastest-grow- I went back on a whim near dusk and acciden-
petition. Then, in 2013, in just its sixth edition, ing sport. tally met our hero, Speedo-clad and strolling
tragedy struck. An American diver named jovially through the sandy parking lot toward
Nicholas Mevoli experienced a pulmonary Second, amateur events. “Why do people the beach.
hemorrhage caused by barometric pressure run marathons and participate in triathlons?”
and died at a medical centre near the blue hole. he says. “Not to become a national champion I hadn’t planned to see Alexey at all that
Still nascent by the standards of most organ- or a world champion. They do it as a way to night, but if I had, I would’ve expected to find
ised sports, freediving has a growing infra- grow and get healthier and structure their life him in deep, almost monastic, preparation for
structure in place for better education, better and feel progress.” These exotic locations. The yet another world-record dive. But his wife and
training, and safer competition. effects on the body and mind. Just listen to a infant son were with him, too, just swimming
diver describe seeing the sun and sky and gradi- at the blue hole. Here was Alexey, the most fear-
When I ask Trubridge what reports of ents of blue from 100m beneath the surface, and some of all the freedivers, splashing around in
freediving tend to get wrong, he thinks for a it’s easy to imagine novices training up from the depths. I was stunned. It was like happen-
moment, then says the sensationalism of it: zero to travel the world for a new hobby. ing upon Roger Federer hitting balls with his
“Some people have only focused on the cough- kids at Centre Court the night before a final.
ing up blood, the blacking out. That is part of it, Third, freediving schools and studios. In the There was no anxiety, no stress, no fear.
sure, and that’s a risk that is there. But it’s like past, Alexey says, diving schools have primar-
motor racing: If you were to just focus on the ily been set up in coastal diving locations. But His mother had died freediving in waters
crashes, you wouldn’t be telling the full story.” Alexey wants to put his new schools mostly much shallower than these, half a world away.
in cities. “I really like the concept of having a A man had died from freediving at this very
Still, the effects of diving to these depths school in a busy city, where it’s needed to help spot not long ago. Alexey had been there. But
day after day are cumulative. In the lungs, in all that noise was irrelevant. Those things were
the legs, in the head. Which is one reason why Alexey was as talented not now. Alexey had big ideas for this sport he
things at the surface get dicier by the last days as anyone alive at was here to carry forward, but that was noth-
of competition. Even Alexey, on day eight, takes shrinking the focal ing to be bothered with now, either. When the
longer on his Bi-Fins dive than expected. And length to practically moment called for it, he was as talented as
though he winds up breaking Arnaud’s short- zero. It was his great anyone alive at shrinking the focal length to
held world record, watching someone fail to gift. The thing that practically zero. It was his great gift. The thing
emerge from the deep for even just seconds made it possible for that made it possible for him to go deeper on
beyond their projected time is enough to make him to go deeper on one one breath than anyone. When he chose to, he
a viewer acutely uncomfortable. breath than anyone. could make it so all there was in the world was
what was in front of him. And that night, the
On day nine, seven divers fail to reach their world was just: Man. Wife. Baby. Blue hole.
attempted depths and five divers black out.
Alexey, having nothing left to prove, does a sort Daniel Riley is a GQ correspondent
of victory-lap dive in recreational fins. Before
the dive, Trubridge is in the commentator

FEBRUARY 2022 GQ 161

NOW MORE THAN EVER, SKIERS AND SNOWBOARDERS ARE

The storied team
at Air-Glaciers
makes roughly
2,500 rescue

runs in the Swiss
Alps each year.

BY
JOSHUA
HAMMER
VENTURING FURTHER IN THE BACKCOUNTRY – AT A MOMENT WHEN CLIMATE CHANGE IS

MAKING MOUNTAIN CONDITIONS MORE DANGEROUS. THE RESULT: IT’S NEVER

BEEN A BUSIER TIME FOR THE WORLD’S MOST ELITE HELICOPTER RESCUE TEAM

F O R D A Y S I T had been snowing, but now the The first one off the ridge, Jaccard plunged He couldn’t move his arms. He lay immobile,
clouds were gone. And way up here, high above into the powder and glided downward across struggling to breathe for about three minutes.
the treeline, where the storm had wreathed a wide snowfield. His two friends followed at a Then everything faded to black.
the mountaintop, the only evidence of the foul safe distance, a few dozen metres behind. Then
weather was the snow that it had left behind. Jaccard turned his skis down the 45-degree O V E R T H E M O U N T A I N , in the Rhône Valley town
It was everywhere, spread across the face of slope and shot through a pass between hills. He of Sion, Gérald Maret was spending that morn-
the peak and down the rocky ridges like a thick skidded over ice patches and plowed through ing in an office at the local airport. It was 11.30
layer of frosting on a cake and glittering against drifts, picking up speed, trying to suss out a on 24 January 2021, when an urgent dispatch
a cerulean sky.  route in the trackless snow. He made one turn, came in: Avalanche. Roc d’Orzival. One person,
then a wider one. equipped with airbag and DVA, missing.
Joël Jaccard squinted hard in the bright light
and shuffled in his skis. He took a long look Then he sensed trouble. Maret knew the drill. The 53-year-old had
down the backside of the mountain, studying Up ahead, the wind had gone to work on the flown helicopters for two decades for Air-
the way the high slopes of Roc d’Orzival – a fresh powder that had been coming down all Glaciers, one of the most storied mountain
9,400-feet arrowhead-shaped protrusion in week, whipping the snow into an enormous rescue squads in the world. Since 1965, the
the Swiss Alps – fell away beneath him. With drift – a huge pillow-like mound, known as a renowned helicopter service has patrolled
his gaze, he traced a path down to the village windslab, or plaque à vent. Jaccard had spent the high mountain passes of Valais, one of the
of Grimentz, more than 5,000 feet below, tak- enough time in the mountains to apprehend largest of Switzerland’s 26 cantons. Sprinkled
ing mental measure of the obstacle course the danger of this sort of drift. The new pile of across six alpine bases, the outfit maintains a
before him. Steep traverses, vertical crevasses, snow, resting precariously atop the old, unsta- fleet of 16 high-altitude-ready helicopters and
ice patches, and spines of black rock. It was a ble snowpack, could break off and charge down is perhaps the most effective unit of its kind in
treacherous run, unsecured and unsupervised, the slope at the slightest disturbance.  the world; certainly it’s one of the busiest. Air-
suitable only for experts – the ultimate “free Jaccard tried to slow himself; he swerved but Glaciers flies about 2,500 missions a year (aug-
ride,” as he thought of it. Jaccard and his two couldn’t avoid it. Suddenly, he was upon the menting its operating budget by selling Rescue
friends had trudged to this off-trail spot by tak- drift, and then he heard an ominous, low rum- Cards that entitle its 80,000 or so subscribers
ing a ski resort lift to the highest station and bling sound. Turning his head, he saw behind to receive financial coverage for all rescue costs
then carrying their skis uphill for another 15 him a fissure open in the snow, 35m back, not picked up by their insurers). The group’s
minutes. Now he was eager to get moving; he triggered by his body weight. He watched as roster of seasoned pilots prides itself on being
figured it would take them 30 minutes to reach gravity took hold of the dislodged snow, send- able to reach even the most forbidding spots in
the village.  ing it down the hill. The enormous white wall Valais in mere minutes.
was sliding in his direction.
Of course, out here, Jaccard knew, things Jaccard scrambled atop a rise, but the ava- Seconds after receiving the call, Maret
could always go wrong. Like many experi- lanche, moving now at 60mph, quickly met sprinted onto the tarmac and climbed into
him. He felt the immense weight of the wave the cockpit of one of the base’s two Écureuil
as it plowed into his back, tearing off his skis, AS350s. As he fired the engine, a pair of rescue
fracturing one of his vertebrae, and pummel- guides, Gérald Mathys, 50, and Pascal Gaspoz,
ling him down in the direction of the ground. 52, raced behind him. The two had both been
As the snow gathered all around him, Jaccard flying into avalanches and other calamities
groped for the cord on his airbag and gave it a for Air-Glaciers for decades. They had quickly
ferocious pull just before he was fully engulfed. grabbed from the hangar a stretcher, some
The movement released 200 litres of com- shovels, beacons, collapsible snow probes, and
pressed air from a steel cylinder, which bal- an antenna that dangles from the helicopter’s
looned a dual airbag system to life. He hoped underbelly to facilitate the search for a trans-
mitter’s signal. Gear in hand, they piled into the

AS THE SNOW BEGAN TO ENGULF HIM, JOËL JACCARD COULD SEE THE BRIGHT WHITES AND BLUES OF SNOW

enced skiers of the alpine backcountry, he took the inflated device would carry him above the chopper and Maret lifted quickly off the pave-
precautions. Poised on the ridgeline, Jaccard smaller bits of snow and ice, and keep him from ment. But before they could plot a course into
made a mental checklist of the equipment he being buried.  the mountains, they had a quick stop to make. 
carried: shovel, collapsible probe, walkie-talkie.
In his red canvas backpack he had stowed an But it wasn’t enough. The torrent was unre- Maret zipped over the Rhône, banked low,
airbag that, with the yank of a ripcord, could lenting and Jaccard could see the bright whites and brought the helicopter down in a quiet
inflate during an avalanche, propelling him to and blues of snow and sky now give way to residential section of Sion. Pierre Féraud, a
the surface of the cascading river of snow. If darkness. For the first time, he felt the cold roll- 55-year-old Air-Glaciers physician, climbed
he found himself buried, Jaccard’s radio trans- ing over him, beginning to encase him, chok- aboard. He’d been passing the day at home; on
ceiver – known in French as a détecteur de vic- ing off any access he had to air. Instinctively, holiday officially, but the only doctor available.
times d’avalanche, or DVA – was designed to Jaccard stuck his hands over his mouth. Then,
help rescuers locate him. finally, all went still.  Seven minutes had elapsed since the alert.
Aloft again, Maret roared southeast, skirting
But the chances of a disaster on Roc d’Or- He was lying facedown on his stomach with the Château de Tourbillon, a 13th-century tur-
zival seemed to have diminished this morning. his legs extended, unsure of just how much reted castle perched on an outcropping above
Hours earlier, Jaccard had checked the weather snow he was sealed beneath. With his hands Sion. He gained speed, reaching 150mph as he
report provided by the Davos-based experts at near his face, a small pocket of air had been guided the chopper over glacier-carved valleys
the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research. fortuitously preserved near his mouth, but and gorges, blanketed in brilliant new snow.
The heightened avalanche warnings that had breathing was already getting difficult. Then, Maret, who’d been flying in the Alps and the
been issued just over a week earlier had been crackling over his walkie-talkie, he heard the Canadian Rockies for years, was used to the
downgraded for the last few days. The 32-year- urgent voice of one of his companions  vicissitudes of high-altitude flying – the ice fog
old mechanic, a skier since early childhood, that can obscure ski lift cables and hide canyon
wasn’t too worried.  “Joël, do you hear me?”  walls, the tricky winds that can send a chopper
The microphone dangled on a cord extend- careening. Today, however, was cloudless and
ing from his backpack. But he couldn’t answer.

164 GQ FEBRUARY 2022

intensifying. The effects took on, two of the three founders met prema-
ture ends: Geiger was killed in 1966 in a routine
Flight crews at of climate change – for instruction flight in his Piper J3C; Martignoni
Air-Glaciers are instance, variable winters in died in a plane crash in the Swiss Alps 16 years
later. Bagnon, who is now 86, once harboured
able to reach any which long periods without hopes that his son would carry on Air-Glaciers’
spot in their vast snow are followed by huge daring work. Indeed, François Xavier Bagnon
alpine territory accumulations – are making was 24 when he became the youngest helicop-
in minutes. Alpine conditions harder to ter rescue pilot in Swiss history. But like so
many in his family’s circle, he died tragically. In
predict. As temperatures rise, warmer, wetter 1986, not long after he joined the fraternity of
rescue pilots, his helicopter crashed in a sand-
air is creating fiercer storms that drop snow storm in the Sahara Desert while he was sur-
veying the running of the famed Paris-Dakar
in fitful patterns. Fluctuations in weather and rally, an accident that also claimed the life of
the race’s organiser, the noted French motorcy-
wind influence how the fresh powder interacts cle racer Thierry Sabine. 

the air was nearly still. The visibility was per- with old snowpack. In 2019, the Institute for Since those early days, Air-Glaciers has
fect and he could see, just over a mile ahead, the become famous in Switzerland for its rapid
looming jagged peak of Roc d’Orzival.  Snow and Avalanche Research reported that deployments in Alpine disasters. They’ve
extracted the injured from deep crevasses and
Twenty-two minutes had now passed since approximately two to three times more snow carried them down from towering ledges on
the call reached headquarters. high mountain walls. In March 2012, rescuers
than normal had fallen in the Swiss Alps that raced into action after a school bus crashed
D O W N B E L O W , the fantastically imposing ter- inside a tunnel deep in the mountains near
rain of Valais spread out in all directions. January. As the weather grows more erratic, Sierre, killing 22 children, four teachers, and
A ski mecca, the French-speaking region in the two drivers. Six years later, they helicoptered
corner of southwest Switzerland is dominated and as the popularity of winter sports nudges into the Pigne d’Arolla in the Pennine Alps after
by the iconic Matterhorn. The area is blasted 14 cross-country skiers from Italy and France
in winter by winds that pile unstable drifts on skiers and snowboarders further from the lost their way in fog at 12,000 feet. Air-Glaciers
steep mountainsides. This has helped it earn a guides searched for the lost hikers for 18 hours,
reputation as one of the most treacherous and crammed routes and into the backcountry, saving the lives of all but five, who had frozen
avalanche-prone spots in the Alps. Since 1936, to death overnight.
an average of 24 people have died each year in the risks are mounting. Over a four-day period
avalanches in Switzerland; Valais routinely The skills to respond to such a wide variety of
accounts for a sizeable portion of the toll.  in January 2021, off-piste skiers and snow- high-mountain disasters are honed by the Air-
Glaciers rescuers through intensive training
The danger is felt even by those who don’t boarders set off eight avalanches that left eight that begins with a three-year Swiss-mandated
venture onto the slopes. Disaster sometimes course in alpine guiding. That’s followed by
comes down from the mountains, as it did on free-riders dead. “Valais is the centre of it all,” months of specialised practice and a year-long
30 August 1965, when two million cubic metres paramedic course. Every 12 months, just before
of ice and debris broke off the Allalin Glacier in Pierre Féraud told me. ski season, each of Air-Glaciers’ rescue guides
Valais, swallowing up a dam project and crush- and pilots must also complete a week-long pro-
ing 88 workers, the worst avalanche in recent The threats may be changing, but the region’s
Swiss history. Five years later, in the darkness
of a February morning in 1970, while the village place in the annals of rescue lore goes back cen-
of Reckingen slept, 1.8 million cubic metres
of snow broke away from the Bächji Alp and turies: Valais is the very place where organised
tumbled toward the town. Thirty people were
killed, including 19 army officers sleeping in mountain rescue is said to have begun. In the

1700s, monks at the Grand St-Bernard monas-

tery, perched on an 8,000-feet pass between

Switzerland and Italy, began employing Saint

Bernards to help sniff out travellers lost in the

snow on the treacherous mountain pilgrimage

route referred to as the White Death. (Barry,

the all-time rescue champion, saved 40 people

between 1800 and 1812.) 

Later, Swiss military pilots pioneered air-

borne mountain rescue in 1946 when they fit-

ted skis to a plane and landed atop a glacier in

the Bernese Oberland, saving the passengers

and crew of a crashed American plane. But it

would be a trickier rescue mission that would

AND SKY GIVE WAY TO DARKNESS. HE FELT THE COLD ROLL OVER HIM. THEN, FINALLY, ALL WENT STILL.

OPENING PAGES, PHOTOGRAPHS: COURTESY OF AIR-GLACIERS (2). an army barracks. And in 1999, a dozen people ultimately inspire the need for a full-time pro- ficiency course designed to refine their skills
in the town of Evolène were lost when a huge fessional service like Air-Glaciers. In 1963, in everything from post-avalanche searches to
mass of snow between the peaks of Sasseneire Hermann Geiger, an alpine guide and helicop- high-altitude extractions. 
and Pointe du Tsaté detached and rocketed ter pilot from Sion nicknamed the Flying Saint
down the mountain.  Bernard, responded to an emergency call to During their most-recent training mission,
assist an injured guide who’d been climbing a before this winter’s ski season, I choppered
But the vast majority of the region’s ava- glacier. Geiger flew his small Bell 47 chopper to with a team to a mountaintop not far from Sion,
lanche deaths, some 90 percent, involve people the scene, but was prevented by vicious winds where I joined 30 guides and 30 pilots from
in uncontrolled terrain, such as skiers in hors from landing. Stretcher-bearers were forced to across Valais who’d come to renew their cer-
piste runs – that is, skiers using unmarked or make the arduous climb to reach the man, who tificates. On this November day, the simulated
unprepared routes. These powdery, untram- survived with a broken femur.  mission involved evacuating stranded passen-
meled runs can often be found on the back side gers from a crippled chairlift as it swayed above
of established resorts, in areas unmanned by The incident galvanised Geiger to revo- the slopes of a ski resort. I was invited to play
ski patrols and unprotected by other standard lutionise alpine rescue. With the help of two the part of a hapless skier in need of help. 
safety measures – such as regular detonations fellow guides, Bruno Bagnoud and Fernand
of explosives that touch off controlled ava- Martignoni, he persuaded a Swiss bank to It was a beautiful day to imagine a disaster.
lanches and keep the mountain clear of pre- lend the money to purchase an Aerospatiale From my perch on the stalled lift, I could make
carious accumulation. Not surprisingly, many Alouette III, a powerful jet-engine helicopter out the snow-encrusted Matterhorn looming
rescuers – often exceptional skiers themselves that could reach high altitudes. The same year, over the brown alpine foothills. I watched as
– tend to regard the untrained and unsafe off- the men founded Air-Glaciers. The partners an Écureuil rotored into view, dangling two
piste amateurs with little admiration. Their soon bought more aircraft, hired experienced rescuers secured to a 65-feet-long cable below.
dismay has simmered for years.  pilots, and expanded their operation.  Soon, two yellow-helmeted men landed on the
edge of my chair, each wearing a harness and
Now the danger that lurks on these runs is Perhaps not surprisingly, given the risks they carrying a second, along with coiled ropes and

PHOTOGRAPHS BY YVES BACHMANN FEBRUARY 2022 GQ 165

a dozen carabiners. I held still as one of the men inexact, like a blind minesweeper, and they and swept him off,” he told me. Rescuers found
expertly secured a harness around me, clipped take tons of practice,” the veteran off-piste skier Gross’s body later that day. At nightfall, they
a carabiner to the cable, and wrapped his legs who’s lost several friends in avalanches told me.  called off the search for Nicolas. Two hundred
around my waist. Then the chopper hoisted us rescuers came to the mountain the next day.
up and away. After an exhilarating one-minute Inside the cab of the circling chopper, the They discovered his body at the bottom of the
ride, we were gently deposited in a landing rescue team could tell from Jaccard’s friends avalanche field at noon. The event was one of
zone where I watched the pilots and the guides that his location was a mystery. Every moment the most tragic in Air-Glaciers’ long history.
repeat the exercise again and again over the felt crucial. Pascal Gaspoz, a rangy ex-police
next several hours – practising with cables of officer from a village in the Val d’Hérens, was As Maret flew over the avalanche zone,
assessing their options. Among the first guides he pinpointed the spot where the slab had

FOR ALL THE SAFEGUARDS INTRODUCED IN RECENT YEARS TO LOWER THE RISK OF DEATH BY AVALANCHE, IT’S

various length and envisioning, all the time, the to join Air-Glaciers after the Swiss government detached from the snowpack before shoot-
wind and the snow and jeopardy they would no terminated its own police-rescue operations
doubt be called on to confront later that winter.  and turned the responsibility fully over to ing down the mountain. He studied the long
private companies in 1995, he’d been involved
While the Air-Glaciers squads might train in hundreds of avalanche rescues over three serrated edge that had been left and deter-
to face all manner of alpine calamity, it’s the decades; he knew, more than just about anyone,
threat of avalanche that haunts the high slopes just how crucial their next moves would be. mined that the risk of a second snowslide was
of Valais with special significance. Every rec-
reational skier and rescuer who has ever “Gérald, what do you think? Do we need low – there was no more fresh powder to fall.
swooshed through Swiss backcountry lives in the dogs?” he shouted into his microphone to
dread of them. “You hear that crack and the Gérald Mathys.  He looked for a place to put the chopper down. 
silence while nature holds its breath, waiting
for the mountain to go,” one expert alpinist, Clearly, the beacons on the ground weren’t Mathys, meanwhile, had busied himself try-
who has lost several friends in avalanches and working; perhaps, Gaspoz figured, a more
narrowly avoided being killed herself, told traditional technique could. Air-Glaciers ing to determine what rescuers refer to as the
me. “Even the birds go quiet. You can feel your maintains a database of 45 trained rescue
breath thundering in your ears.” Féraud shared dogs and handlers in Sion and the surround- missing skier’s “history.” After decades of res-
with me a video captured by an off-pister’s hel- ing valleys; at least four teams are always on
met camera in 2020 as an avalanche roared call. Although modern detection technology cues, he’d come to realise that his most useful
over him: it showed swirling granules of snow, has improved dramatically in recent years, the
flashes of sky, then darkness, accompanied by comparatively old-school help that a dog can tool was often his eyes. Scouting the scene out
moans of pain and screams of terror. The skier provide remains remarkably useful in a giant
had somehow managed to avoid being buried, avalanche zone. Dogs, which can smell through the window, he followed the skier’s trail just
but he’d inhaled ice into his lungs and was between 12 and 15 feet of snow and can work
spitting blood.  for an hour before requiring a replacement, are above the disaster area, calculating his route,
still among the world’s most reliable and dura-
“Avalanche… Je ne peux pas réspirer,” ble sensors. Typically, after a rescue team has and then scanning the surface of the avalanche
he cried over his mobile to the emergency been deployed, another chopper is dispatched
dispatcher. I can’t breathe. An Air-Glaciers heli- behind it with a handler and a dog (very few, field, trying to spot a clue in the debris – a glove,
copter-borne crew arrived minutes later and it turns out, are Saint Bernards; the canines
saved him. pitching in nowadays include mostly German a backpack, a protruding appendage, any trace
and Belgian shepherds, Labrador retrievers,
J O Ë L J A C C A R D had been buried for nearly Golden retrievers, and Schnauzers).  that stood out amid the sea of whiteness. 
30 minutes when Gérald Maret whirled his
chopper across the ridgeline of Roc d’Orzival As Gaspoz and Mathys discussed whether A few years ago, Mathys arrived by helicop-
and spotted, from high above, the telltale mess they might need the dogs, Maret scanned the
of the avalanche zone. He circled for a better ridges, searching for warning signs of the ter at the scene of a massive day-old avalanche
look, looping the helicopter wide across a field biggest threat to first responders: a second
of broken ice and snow nearly 180m wide and avalanche. A danger with which Gaspoz was in the Valais; a search for a missing skier had
550m long. Jaccard’s two friends stood near tragically familiar. 
the top of the churned debris, just beneath the been called off the previous night because of
jagged edge that marked where the slab had Twenty years earlier, as six mountain climb-
torn loose. They were trying desperately to ers were ascending an ice column in heavy darkness and the danger of a second slide. As
pick up Jaccard’s DVA signal with their own snow above Zinal in the Val d’Anniviers, an
digital beacons.  avalanche surged over the group and swept a he circled above the zone, something caught
young woman away. Air-Glaciers rushed a dog
Introduced to the market in 1971, these team and 23 rescuers to the scene – among his attention. “I suddenly saw a face sticking
transceivers, which emit an ever-stronger sig- them, Gaspoz’s older brother Nicolas. As they
nal as one approaches a buried victim, were worked, another slide roared down on them. out from the snow,” he recalled. The skier had
hailed as revolutionary when they came out. “It came too far and too fast for us to hear it. It
The technology is not without its limitations, was panic. I heard screams,” one survivor told lain entombed throughout the frigid night, but
though. Using the devices typically takes prac- the local press. 
tice – and overcoming some difficulty. With a his head had stayed above ground. Mathys dug
range of between 40 and 80 metres, they often The avalanche buried six rescuers. Four were
require searchers – sometimes shocked and quickly pulled out alive. But two men – Edouard him out, cold but uninjured, and transported
exhausted avalanche survivors themselves – Gross, 24, and Nicolas, 36 – couldn’t be found.
to cover vast distances through heavy snow, Pascal had been working with his brother ear- him to the hospital.
while precious time is slipping away. “They’re lier that morning before being called away
to another rescue. “I was back at the base on Now Mathys was looking down with the
standby, and then the second avalanche came
same intense gaze. And suddenly, there it was:

a shock of orange in the snow 200 feet below.

His first thought was that a high-visibility vest

had been torn off the skier. Then he realised:

it’s an airbag. A piece of the

latex balloon that Jaccard

The view from had deployed before being

the chopper as swallowed by the snow
rescuer Gérald was now poking through
Mathys reached the surface.
the airbag that
Jaccard had “A i r b a g ! ” Mat h y s
deployed before shouted excitedly through
he was buried. his microphone.

166 GQ FEBRUARY 2022

Maret guided the Écureuil down to the “But where under the snow?” In an instant, the rescuers lifted Jaccard into
snowy surface and gently put the helicop- “I don’t know… it swept me away… You must the aircraft. The rotors roared overhead, but
ter’s skids on the ground. Mathys leaped out, find me. I’m very cold!” the team was unperturbed, moving in calm
ducking low beneath the spinning rotors, and Féraud got on his radio. “He’s alive!” he synchronicity. They zipped back to the landing
ran toward the airbag. Jaccard’s companions, shouted. “He’s somewhere under our feet!” area, where a waiting Féraud placed an oxygen
who’d been searching up the mountain, raced Rescuers raced back to the debris field and mask over Jaccard’s nose and mouth. Gaspoz
300m down the hill to meet the rescuers. began listening in the dark for sounds. A res- grabbed the defibrillator and the intubation
cuer dialled the buried man’s phone and told equipment. Just then, Jaccard’s eyes opened.
“Pull the shovel out of my backpack,” Mathys him to yell out his name, Marcus, and then to Féraud gasped. He’s alive. 
screamed at them. 

THE EXPERTISE OF THE RESCUER THAT OFTEN DETERMINES WHETHER THOSE LOST CAN BE FOUND IN TIME.

Mathys had done the maths; he knew the keep shouting. Before long the elated rescue Somehow, despite running out of air three
stats. He realised that in all probability, after team zeroed in on the muffled cries rising from feet beneath the snow, Jaccard’s bloodstream
30 minutes under the snow, the man was likely the snow. They began digging furiously and had retained enough oxygen to keep his heart
to be dead. But his experience also told him that soon plucked the 35-year-old out, amazed he’d beating for 30 minutes. Yet the carbon dioxide
the rescuers might have a chance. They had to survived. The frigid temperature – 6.8 degrees coursing through his body was poisoning him.
start digging.  fahrenheit – had allowed the powdery snow If Mathys hadn’t spotted the flash of his air-
to maintain permeability, facilitating the flow bag, Féraud estimated Jaccard would have had
I N T H E M I N D S of the rescuers that day, a cease- of oxygen and allowing the man to survive for about “five or 10 minutes to live.”
less stopwatch had started running as soon three hours buried beneath the cold. When he
as the emergency call reached Air-Glaciers’ emerged, he was freezing but unharmed. The team stowed its gear and steadied
headquarters. After all, when it comes to who Jaccard on the stretcher. In a flash, the helicop-
lives and who dies, it’s time that often predicts. T H E W H I R R I N G R O T O R blades of the Écureuil ter took off, found its direction, and then sped
Research on Swiss and Canadian avalanche drowned out Mathys. He shouted again – “The across the Alps, reaching the hospital in Sion
victims has shown that those buried for up to shovel!” – and gestured to his pack, strapped in 15 minutes. “It was one of the greatest res-
18 minutes have a 91 percent probability of sur- tightly to his back. Flying snow and icy wind cues that we’ve ever done,” Féraud would recall
vival; but for those buried longer, the survival whipped up by the helicopter stung Mathys’s nearly one year later, as we sat together inside
rate drops precipitously. face. One of Jaccard’s friends grabbed the large- the Maison de Sauvetage, or Rescue House, the
bladed tool and handed it to the guide. Gaspoz Air-Glaciers’ headquarters at Sion airport.
Of those who, like Jaccard, have been jumped out of the helicopter and Maret lifted
snowed under for up to 35 minutes, the like- the chopper up and away, manoeuvring the It was also a reminder that for all the safe-
lihood of surviving is 34 percent. Beyond that Écureuil to a safe distance on a patch of even guards introduced in recent years to lower the
point, according to the researchers, the sur- ground 80m away. risk of death by avalanche, it’s the expertise of
vival rate declines to less than 20 percent, then the rescuer – the ability to analyse a scene in
flattens out. That’s because as hypothermia Féraud hopped out and was preparing his the chaotic aftermath of a disaster and react
kicks in – about 35 minutes into such an ordeal equipment – including a defibrillator and tub- efficiently under stress – that often determines
– bodily functions slow and oxygen consump- ing to provide endotracheal intubation. “In whether those lost can be found in time. “More
tion decreases. As Féraud, the Air-Glaciers’ most cases, he would be dead,” Féraud told me, than the medicine, more than the technology,
physician pointed out to me, the chances of “but I thought he had a chance.”  it was the guide who saved him,” Féraud said. 
surviving an avalanche remain roughly the
same whether one lies buried in the snow for Back at the spot they’d found the airbag, Joël Jaccard’s final memory from the moun-
35 minutes or for an hour and a half.  Mathys dug one foot deep… two feet… three tain that day was being immobile beneath the
feet through the packed snow. Then, after 60 snow with his hands over his mouth, listening
Of course, Féraud and the Air-Glaciers teams seconds of digging, he looked down at the helplessly to his friends’ frantic voices on the
had also seen cases that defied physics and biol- exposed head of Joël Jaccard. walkie-talkie.
ogy – extraordinary incidents where victims
simply got lucky. In January 2005, Féraud heli- “I see him!” he shouted.  The next thing he remembered was lying in
coptered to the scene of a massive avalanche Jaccard lay limp and unresponsive. Gaspoz a hospital corridor, pain pulsating through his
in the Verbiers ski area that had swept away and Jaccard’s two companions joined the res- back from his fractured lower vertebra. It took
the caretaker of a ski mountain lodge. The man cue. Shovelling methodically, the four men him months to get over the effects of the acci-
wasn’t equipped with a DVA. A team of 120 cleared snow for another two minutes until dent, but eventually his spine healed and the
rescuers searched for three hours, probing the they had uncovered the skier’s entire body. pain of that harrowing morning faded. 
debris field with their long collapsible poles. Lying face down in the snow pile, legs extended,
Meanwhile, five dogs fruitlessly sniffed at the he was almost perfectly horizontal. He was also When I asked him what lessons he’d learned
snow with cold noses as darkness fell. When unconscious – and he wasn’t breathing. Mathys from that near-death experience, he told me
night set in, Féraud and the others had lost rolled Jaccard onto his back and shook his that his only mistake was rushing out on the
all hope. “We were certain that he was dead,” shoulders, attempting to wake him. Then he first morning of good weather and failing
Féraud recalled. The physician trudged to began chest compressions, watching intently to give the accumulated snowfall a chance
the ski cabin to warm up after the dispiriting for any sign of response. Nothing.  to properly settle. “We should have waited a
search, when the lodge’s phone rang. With his face to the sky, Jaccard remained couple of days.” 
motionless, not breathing. But then Mathys
A woman there picked up. “It’s for you,” she noticed something hopeful: a slight flicker of As we spoke, the new ski season was just
told the doctor. “It’s the avalanche.” the eyelids. Quickly, the rescuers slid him onto beginning in the Alps – and Jaccard seemed
a stretcher and contacted Maret, who was undaunted by last year’s brush with disaster.
Féraud grabbed the phone. He heard a muf- watching nearby with the chopper ready. He said he was looking forward to his next
fled voice. On command, the pilot smoothly floated off-piste run. He’d even bought a new airbag,
his helicopter back across the avalanche field, to replace the old one. And he was expecting a
“What are you waiting for to pick me up? I’m alighting next to Jaccard’s body as it lay pros- busy winter in the mountains.
freezing!” trate in the glistening snow. 
Just like Air-Glaciers.  
“But where are you?” Féraud asked.
“I’m under the avalanche! I’m cold!” joshua hammer is a
regular contributor to gq.

FEBRUARY 2022 GQ 167































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AURORA, BARBADOS the Caribbean’s top destinations ever al fresco, and a tennis court. Inside, the
since. With three golf courses – two generous open-plan living areas lead to
Positioned on one of the highest points on of them 18-hole championship courses seven bedrooms, all en suite, with air
the exclusive Sandy Lane Estate, this seven- – and a 47,000-square-foot luxury conditioning throughout. Furthermore,
bedroom villa is surrounded by mature tropical spa, there’s plenty to keep visitors the property is one of the few on the
gardens that offer remarkable privacy. Covered amused, not forgetting its beautiful estate that come with a private cabana
terraces provide shady spots that overlook the sandy beaches, and numerous bars and at the Sandy Lane Beach Club.
pool, while a gazebo creates a perfect spot for restaurants. There are also a number
of private properties on this exclusive Also in the Caribbean is a major new
outdoor dining. $5.95 million. estate, including Aurora, a spacious, project currently underway in Saint
Savills: 020 7016 3744 traditional-style villa for sale via Savills, Lucia. Occupying a breathtakingly pretty
which is set on a large plot of two acres. peninsula on the island’s northern tip,
There’s nothing like the gloom The elevated site provides spectacular Cabot Saint Lucia is set to be one of the
of a British winter to make views, and the extensive grounds have region’s most exciting new resorts when
you want to escape to warmer been landscaped to create a verdant it launches this autumn. Alongside an
climes. For those who are tropical paradise. There’s an outdoor 18-hole golf course and extensive
serious about spending more time in the pool and terrace, a gazebo for dining wellness facilities, the development will
sun, there are plenty of idyllic boltholes also include 40 guest suites, as well as
on the market, where fantastic weather
is to be found almost all year round.

Sandy Lane resort in Barbados has
long been a favourite of the jet set –
the five-star resort first opened its
doors in 1961 and has been one of

SAMUJANA, THAILAND VILLA BAAN SANG,
THAILAND
Villa 27 is one of a collection of properties at the
Samujana resort on the island of Koh Samui. Occupying Also in Koh Samui is this
substantial newbuild, which spans
one of the highest points on the estate, the four-
bedroom house has wonderful sea views, perhaps best 13,573 square feet and makes
the most of its spectacular setting,
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Sphere Estates: 07891 595205 overlooking the sea.The four-
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CABOT SAINT LUCIA, to a high standard, with Thai teak,
SAINT LUCIA granite walls and hand-cast bronze

Spanning 375 acres, this brand- details. $4,764,557.
new resort is set to make Christie’s International Real Estate:
waves when it launches this
autumn. A limited number of 00 66 2030 0060
plots for private residences are
still available, offering buyers the MANDARIN ORIENTAL
chance to be part of an exciting BEVERLY HILLS, US
new community in one of the
island’s prettiest spots. From If you prefer city living, then
$2 million for a custom lot. how about escaping to the
cabotsaintlucia.com sunny climes of Beverly
Hills? Mandarin Oriental is
private villas and the option for buyers offering 54 residences at
to purchase lots if they would like to 9200 Wilshire Boulevard –
design their own home. the apartments combine the
comforts of a private home
In Thailand, there are currently with the luxury hotel group’s
several captivating properties for top-notch service and
sale on Koh Samui, a popular resort facilities. POA.
island known for its sandy, palm- mo-residencesbeverlyhills.com
fringed beaches. Just 10 minutes from
Koh Samui’s international airport
lies Samujana, which has a collection
of elegant modern villas overlooking
a pristine bay. Two of these are
currently available to buy, including
Villa 27 (pictured top), which features
a large infinity-edge swimming pool.
Meanwhile, on the western coast is
Villa Baan Sang, which is listed with

SIX SENSES ZIL PASYON, SEYCHELLES

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with owners having access to all the hotel’s amenities.With a dramatic hilltop setting, the properties can be individually

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Sphere Estates: 020 3617 1360

SOUTHBEACH WELIGAMA, SRI LANKA

Overlooking the Indian Ocean and designed with
sustainability in mind, Southbeach Weligama is a new
residential development of one-, two- and four-bedroom
apartments with a wealth of shared facilities, including a

restaurant, an art gallery and a poolside bar.
Due for completion in 2023. From $150,000.

southbeachweligama.com

Christie’s International Real Estate. OCEANUS, SAINT VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES
Situated in a bucolic spot amid wooded
hills and swaying palm trees, it’s notable Set in the hills of Mustique, this remarkable property has six bedroom
for its remarkable sea views. As part of suites, including a master suite with its own private plunge pool.There are
the Five Islands Estate, this property is X[S JYV XLIV SYXHSSV TSSPW MRGPYHMRK ER MR½RMX] TSSP [MXL WTIGXEGYPEV ZMI[W
one of only two villas in this exclusive, – the perfect spot for hosting a party. $16 million.
low-density development, which makes Knight Frank: 020 7861 1553
the most of its tranquil setting.
DAINFERN VALLEY, SOUTH AFRICA
In the Seychelles, you can find Six
Senses Zil Pasyon on the 652-acre Located in the secure environs of the Dainfern Valley estate near
private island of Félicité. The island .SLERRIWFYVK XLMW ½ZI FIHVSSQ LSYWI LEW EMV] STIR TPER PMZMRK EVIEW ERH ZMI[W
is known for its dramatic granite rock of the nearby river. Other amenities include a library and cinema room and staff
formations, and the striking design of the
resort’s 28 private residences, currently accommodation. £1.415 million.
under construction, was inspired by Engel & Völkers: 00 27 11 465 0410
these natural features. Each property
will occupy a spacious plot, and owners
will be able to work with the developers,
if desired, to create something entirely
bespoke – allowing design-conscious
buyers to bring their fantasy home to life.

Established with the sole intention of providing

a personalised property
service for clients

when considering selling or buying.

ST GEORGE’S HILL, WEYBRIDGE, SURREY £12,000,000 This magnificent property has been
completed and detailed externally in a
Central London: 20 miles | Heathrow Airport: 17 miles Freehold most stunning mixture of Limestone and
Chinese marble, creating a weatherproof
An unique and a very exceptional opportunity to acquire a substantial and imposing and secure shell. Internally the proposed
new mansion home situated within the sought-after St George’s Hill private estate. accommodation is to be arranged over
Undoubtedly one of the most iconic luxury homes to be built within this exclusive three floors, which are in situ with formed
residential estate. lift shafts and staircases. The layout and
design of the significant internal space, of
approximately 27,000 sq. ft now requires
completion by an incoming purchaser. This
stunning part-completed mansion home
has been constructed utilising quality
materials throughout. The gardens extend
to approximately 1.64 acres (0.661 ha) and
there are distant views from the first-floor
roof terrace. The property also features an
impressive driveway and turning forecourt
with access to substantial garaging.

(illustrations are computer-generated
images of the property)

For further details in the first instance please contact Tim Garbett.

Tim Garbett: [email protected] +44 7831 576616
Sam Panteli: [email protected] +44 7979 876380

Garbett & Partners LLP, www.garbett.partners timgarbettgp
2 Allen Street, London W8 6BH

BRITAIN | PROPERT Y

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PHOTOGRAPHY C/O SAVILLS

PROPERTY | PROMOTION

Clockwise,
corner living room;
exterior of No.1
Grosvenor Square;
dining room with
hand-painted wallpaper;
the Oval Room

IN THE HEART

OF MAYFAIR

Magnificent apartments, exceptional services:

in No.1 Grosvenor Square, Lodha has created the most

desirable address in London

Private homes do not come in more Canadian High Commission. Today, it The stunning show apartment (pictured),
prestigious locations than No.1 stands as a unique opportunity to live in designed by Blandine de Navacelle, empha-
Grosvenor Square. Occupying a sumptuous comfort in the centre of the sises the ease of entertaining within a home
west-facing corner of the garden sophisticated world of Mayfair restaurants of joyful colour furnished with antique
square that has, since the 1720s, (Scott’s, Hakkasan, George), exclusive silk rugs and furniture selected to enhance
been the most desirable place for influential members’ clubs (Mark’s Club, Annabel’s) the proportions whilst creating a family
figures to establish their London presence, and casinos – not to mention the boutiques feel. For five-star hospitality, as well as
this elegant building has a unique history of Bond Street, Mount Street and Savile housekeeping, health and fitness, and
that culminates today in the most exquisite Row, and the world-respected gallery scene. private office requirements, the concierge is
of 21st-century residential developments. truly second to none. They can also arrange
Reconstructed brick by brick, the listed Residents enjoy access to a private private shopping, gallery visits and
facade discreetly encapsulates 44 of boardroom, cinema and games room. reservations at the best restaurants. “Our
London’s finest apartments, designed with Health benefits are emphasised in the vision and goal for No.1 Grosvenor Square
higher proportions for a modern lifestyle. sanctuary of the 10,000sqft wellness zone, residents is to provide a personal, private
Each unit can be purchased fully decorated which features a 25m swimming pool, and secure sense of place, home and
by an in-house design team or as a skeleton female-only and mixed sauna and steam community with extraordinary service,”
property ready to be dressed in a resident’s rooms, vitality pool and a gym overseen by says Hirst.
unique style. personal trainers. The sense of a personal For more information, please visit 1gsq.com
The building would have been visited by a oasis is enhanced by embassy-level security or contact [email protected]
young JFK when his father Joseph P. Kennedy services, a Bond-style automated parking
was US ambassador to the UK in the 1930s. system and the warm and attentive 24/7
This seat of global power was also a wartime Saint Amand concierge – a multi-lingual
embassy – with its own Oval Office – and the team of 30, overseen by General Manager
and world-renowned hotelier Simon Hirst.

BRITAIN | PROPERTY

NOTEBOOK

Superlative services and luxurious properties,
at home and abroad

CARIBBEAN DREAMING ESSENTIAL ADVICE

Occupying a breathtaking spot on the unspoilt island of Dominica, Whether you’re looking
Secret Bay is one of the Caribbean’s top resorts. A collection of private to buy a dream property
in the Home Counties
residences allows buyers to make the most of this fantastic setting – or central London - or
the architectural, treehouse-style villas are perched high on the cliffs, if you’d like help with
[MXL I\XVESVHMREV ] ZMI[W EGVSWW XLI [EZIW &YMPX MR ER IRZMVSRQIRXEPP] discreetly selling one -
then Garbett & Partners
conscious manner, using sustainable materials, the properties feel are able to help. ‘Never
GSRXIQTSVEV ] ERH PY\YVMSYW ;MXL EGGIWW XS XLI VIWSV X´W I\GIPPIRX WIV ZMGI before have we ever had
and amenities,The Residences at Secret Bay provide the perfect getaway. such focused purchasers
and vendors seeking
From $1.49 million. genuine property advice
For more information, visit secretbay.dm and direction, in what was undoubtedly a turbulent and rollercoaster
year,’ says the company’s founder,Tim Garbett (pictured). With the
market in such a changeable state, engaging the assistance of a
proper ty-advisory service can be invaluable in navigating the ins and
outs of buying or selling a house.
For more information, visit garbett.partners

LIVING THE HIGH LIFE

Prominently positioned in London’s historic Square Mile, One Bishopsgate
Plaza offers prime apartments in the heart of the City. Residents can
enjoy the comfort and security of their own home, while also enjoying the
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bar, and business suite, while homeowners will also have access to the
I\XIRWMZI LSXIP EQIRMXMIW WYGL EW XLI MR½RMX] TSSP XLEX SZIVPSSOW XLI
plaza. From £1.3 million.
For more information, visit onebgp.com

STYLE WITH SUSTAINABILITY PHOTOGRAPH: JULIAN ABRAMS

At the London-based interior-design company Studio Suss, the focus
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Founded by Simone Suss in 2013, the company employs cutting-
edge industry practices and uses natural materials wherever possible.
Working with both private and commercial clients, its projects have
ranged from newbuild properties for high-net-worth individuals to
FVERHIH SJ½GIW ERH VIXEMP WTEGIW EPP SJ [LMGL LEZI VIWYPXIH MR WX]PMWL

contemporary interiors that are kinder to the planet.
For more information, visit studiosuss.com

TAKE THE UBER BOAT BY THAMES CLIPPERS TO EMBANKMENT IN JUST 25 MINUTES

Live Life in
the Current

Stunning One and Two ²edr m apartments
at this well-established and sophisticated

Thameside community close to Chelsea and Fulham.
Private eisure Club, gardens,shuttle bus service,
car and cycle parking.

PRICES FROM £645,000 M OV E IN NOW

RIVERSIDE QUARTER SW18

SALES GALLERY OPEN, BY APPOINTMENT ONLY
RIVERSIDEQUARTER.COM | 020 8877 2000

FINAL SHOT STYLIST, JON TIETZ.

One last flex for GQ’s first
global sports issue, courtesy
of the boundary-pushing
baseball phenom,
Shohei Ohtani.
Shirt (price upon
request) by ERL.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ELI RUSSELL LINNETZ

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