It also has been featured at the World Games as a trend sport since 1981 and was demonstrated at the 2013 Summer Universiade in July 2013.
It dates from ancient Greece, when it was used by sponge fishermen, and has been re-discovered in recent years as a competitive freediving discipline.
[10] It was in this discipline that the first world record in freediving was registered, when the Greek sponge fisherman Stathis Chantzis dived to a depth of 83 m (272 ft) in July 1913.
[11] It consists of a variable ballast dive using a skandalopetra tied to a rope to take the diver down.
[14] Underwater hockey (UWH; also called Octopush and Water Hockey locally) is a globally played limited-contact sport in which two teams compete to manoeuvre a puck across the bottom of a swimming pool into the opposing team's goal by propelling it with a stick.
[15] It originated in England in 1954 when the founder of the newly formed Southsea Sub-Aqua Club invented the game as a means of keeping the club's members interested and active over the cold winter months when open-water diving lost its appeal.
Underwater hockey was first played as a world championship in Canada in 1980 after a false start brought about by international politics in 1979.
Participants wear diving masks, fins and wetsuits and use the underside of the frozen surface as the playing area for a floating puck.
The submitted digital images are then assessed and ranked by a jury using a maximum of five photographic categories as well as an overall score.
The sport was developed prior to 1985 as a photographic film-based event and is currently mainly practised in non-English speaking countries.
[19] Underwater rugby (UWR) is an underwater sport whose play involves two teams seeking to gain control of a slightly negatively buoyant ball (filled with saltwater) and passing it into a heavy metal bucket serving as the opponents’ goal at the bottom of a swimming pool.
It originated from within the physical fitness training regime existing in German diving clubs during the early 1960s and has little in common with rugby football except for the name.
It is known as Tir sur cible subaquatique in French and as Tiro al Blanco Subacuático in Spanish.
It is reported that in 1968, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted in favour of synchronized swimming over spearfishing.