Enzo Maiorca

Enzo Maiorca was born in Siracusa in 1931. He learnt to swim at 4 and he soon started to go underwater - though he admitted he had always been scared of the sea.

In 1956 he was impressed by an article about the gestures of Falco and Novelli- they had reached the record for deepest dive: -41. After a while, he decided to enter the skin-diving competitions. In 1960, his dream became true when he reached the record for deepest dive (-45) and defeated the Brasilian Santarelli. In September 1960, Santarelli was the winner again when he reached -46 metres; but his primacy did not last long because Enzo reached -49 metres in November. This was the beginning of a great period - lasting 16 years until 1976 then he gave up doing this sport.

In 1988, encouraged by both daughters - Patrizia and Rossana, worldwide famous scuba divers -, he goes back on track with his last record of - 101 metres.

During his career, he had to face some famous contenders: the most important was the Brazilian Maerigo Santarelli (he quitted in 1963), then Teteke Williams, Robert Croft and Jacques Mayol. The challenge between Maiorca and Jacques Mayol inspired Le Grand Bleu, a film of Luc Besson. Dating back to 1988, Le gran Bleu came to Italy in 2002 because Enzo Maiorca censored the film - in his opinion, his reputation could have been ruined. The reason was clear: the story was not totally true and could ruin the reputation of the Italian athlete.

He appeared on the Italian State RAI TV program Lineablu from 2000 to 2002.

He is one of the most important Italian divers - since he reached the worldwide record in diving. He is a vegetarian. He published following books: A capofitto nel turchino (Mursia, 1977), Scuola di apnea - Immergiamoci con il più grande subacqueo di tutti i tempi (La Cuba, 1982), Il Mare con la M maiuscola (Lights, 2001), Sotto il segno di Tanit (Mursia, 2011).

More information
Official website

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