"On leaving, bliss": Nice diver Alice Modolo finds her best in the Bahamas

And suddenly, the smile. Radiated by sunlight once again, a face submerged for three minutes and ten seconds reappears. That of Alice Modolo, fresh from her sheer descent from 98 meters in constant weight, was enough to bring a smile to the judges' faces.

On July 8, 2025, she approached her record of 101 meters, already broken at Dean's Blue Hole in 2021, this hole 202 meters deep and around thirty in diameter, the traditional place where the Vertical Blue is held in the Bahamas.

" It's a mystical and paradoxical site, both extremely impressive, but where you feel safe. It's where I've had my best performances and it's a competition apart," emphasizes the adopted Niçoise, who refuses to judge her performance simply by the prism of the 98-meter result.

" It's not the first time I've gone so low, but it's the one where I felt the most fluid, like a dancer. Coming out, I felt bliss. "

“The human connection is what makes you perform.”

These newfound sensations, which the Maralpine explains by a drastic modification of its training methods.

" For three years I've been trying a lot of things to improve myself physically. Because mentally I've already been able to go over 100 meters, and I wanted to go further. Except I hit a few walls ," she recalls. " I tried what everyone advised me to do: squats and deadlifts. It stiffened my rib cage. However, my flexibility was an asset and my strength wasn't. So now I go to the gym and do exercises with very light weights while playing with my breathing. It's super satisfying, but it's been very hard not to let people tell me how I should train."

Add to that work on the perineum to improve undulation in the water and you will obtain a newfound ease in diving, synonymous with ^2nd performance in the Bahamian competition, behind the untouchable Slovenian Alenka Artnik (123 meters).

Alice Modolo had arrived in the Caribbean a month earlier, giving her time to acclimatize to the waters and, above all, to the locals, the cornerstones of her preparation.

" I really enjoy discovering a new culture every time I dive, being alongside these people who have a simple life. It puts things back into perspective, and the human connection is what makes you perform."

Without the intervention of the locals, the Côte d'Azur native would not have been able to make her descent to 98 meters, nor those before that to 88, 92 and then 96. " I went to the market every Saturday morning, and on my way to the site in the afternoon, I died. A Bahamian gave me a lift. Then the next time, the car wouldn't start and my neighbors gave me a lift (laughs)."

Next stop, Egypt and Sharm el-Sheikh, where Alice Modolo is due to set up shop today for the Only One Competition , from September 8 to 12, 2025.