Best Underwater Sports To Bet On

People wouldn’t even think how many sports they play underwater. However, those who love water and want to do something more unique than swimming can choose from several options. Also, those who are interested in watching competitions in pools are in luck because we have collected the best underwater sports to bet on!

Underwater Hockey or Octopush

Let’s start the list of the best underwater sports to bet on with underwater hockey! On the floor of the pool, the players try to get the roughly 1,3-kilo puck to the opponent’s goal with an unusually short stick of about 30 centimeters. The athletes don’t even have to hit the disc but push it, hence the name Octopush.

People use this name in the UK, where the sport comes from. If you want to watch or play in more extreme conditions, there are underwater hockey matches in freezing water in diving suits, of course.

The extreme version has Austrian origins, and they play it upside down where the ice is the track. The puck is light, so it rises to the ice. The biggest challenge is that players cannot use breathing equipment though they can come to the surface every 30 seconds.

During the game, two teams of ten players compete in two fifteen-minute halves. It is a non-contact sport but can turn quite rough. Two referees watch over the players in the pool and one on the poolside. Players recognize each other by their different colored caps and sticks.

Unsurprisingly, the inventor was a diver named Alan Blake. Although this sport is incredibly popular in Western Europe, especially in France, it’s still a spectacle. Roughly fifty or sixty countries have professional teams around the world. They organize annual Europe and World championships besides the national and regional competitions, which you can find at online gambling sites in the UK!

Best Underwater Sports to Bet on 

Freediving is an extreme sport where the divers dive to incredible depths without any breathing equipment. An average person can hold their breath for 30-40 seconds without trouble. Well-prepared divers can do this for a particularly long time without using any device.

In addition, the pressure of the water not only compresses the body cavities containing air but changes the behavior of gases in the bloodstream as well, including its effect on the central nervous system. So it’s truly an extreme sport. At the beginning of freediving, people were convinced that a person could not dive deeper than 30-40 meters.

They thought the lungs would collapse in that depth, so it was an impossible challenge. In addition, before reaching the surface, losing consciousness can occur suddenly due to decreasing pressure. Since breathing is an integral part of every sport, free divers almost always use yoga techniques since mental control is a vital requirement.

Mind control is a crucial part of freediving. The competitors have to be relaxed and alert throughout since the athletes, with the help of a rope, dive as deep as they can with only one breath. They can’t panic or lose control. Check out the deepest pools in the world and you will understand!

Freediving Record

Arnauld Jerald broke his own freediving world record from five days earlier. The French diver dived 120 meters deep in three minutes and thirty-four seconds with one breath in August. Vertical Blue is an annual competition in the Bahamas which is the most prestigious freediving competition in the world, also known as the Wimbledon of freediving.

This year, 42 athletes competed for eleven days between August 1 and 11. Many freedivers made a name for themselves thanks to this sport, like Herbert Nitsch or Alexey Molchanov. Check out their odds at 1xBET Sportsbook!

Underwater Rugby

Underwater rugby is a relatively new sport that comes from Germany. It is a recognized sport but does not belong to FINA, but the oldest diving association, CMAS, was founded by Jacques Cousteau. Many think that there are many similarities with traditional rugby, but not really.

It’s a technical diving sport where moving around is free because they play it in a 4-5-meter-deep pool. The goal is a basket, where the players have to get the ball in, which is a rubber ball filled with salt water. 

The game is fast and tiring, where teams of six play the match underwater, so neither the players nor the ball can leave the water. Physical contact is allowed, but they punish roughness like hitting, kicking, or strangling. The athletes can pass the ball to each other in any direction. The water stops the ball after about two meters, so positioning, speed, and accurate aiming are necessary. 

On the national level, the Scandinavian countries are the best, but, for example, in Germany, there are roughly 200 registered sports associations. Underwater rugby is also among the best underwater sports to bet on in Austria and the Czech Republic. According to online gambling sites in the UK, this sport is present in 30 countries approximately and Germany, Norway, Colombia, Sweden, and Finland are among the best.

Best Underwater Sports to Bet on

Have you heard about underwater target shooting? It’s also among the most interesting and best underwater sports to bet on. They organize competitions in pools and open waters, but the organizers prefer the former for better visibility. Competitors must hit a 33×35 centimeter target with a speargun, the top of which must be at least three meters from the target.

The athletes must come to the surface after each shot but can only load the rifle underwater. In each round, the competitors have five minutes to fire five shots. There is also underwater biathlon, where the athletes have to swim between the shots. The points don’t matter here, only hitting the target, and whoever has the most hits in the shortest time wins.

Aquathlon – Wrestling in Water

Aquathlon is basically a combat sport where competitors fight for a ribbon underwater. Its name comes from the combination of the words Aqua, water, and Athlon, contest. Two participants compete in the water at the same time. The aquathlon contestants wear masks and fins, an ankle, and a ribbon around their ankles. The goal is to get the ribbon from the opponent’s ankle.

Igor Ostrovsky developed this spectacular sport in 1980. Two years later, in 1982, the first competition was held in the hometown of aquathlon, Moscow. In 2008, CMAS officially accepted aquathlon as a new underwater sport, so you can find the official contests at 1xBET Sportsbook. 

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