Blaine sets breath-holding record on ‘Oprah’
CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) — David Blaine set a new world record Wednesday for breath-holding, 17 minutes and 4 seconds.
The feat was broadcast live during The Oprah Winfrey Show and the studio audience cheered as divers pulled the 35-year-old magician from a water-filled sphere.
Blaine looked relaxed afterward and said the record was a lifelong dream.
The previous record was 16 minutes and 32 seconds, set February 10 by Switzerland’s Peter Colat, according to Guinness World Records.
Before he entered the sphere, Blaine inhaled pure oxygen through a mask to saturate his blood with oxygen and flush out carbon dioxide.
Guinness says up to 30 minutes of so-called oxygen hyperventilation is allowed under its guidelines.
Previously, Blaine was buried alive for a week in a see-through coffin in New York and spent more than a month suspended from a glass box by the River Thames in London.
Even though Blaine has sometimes attracted thousands of spectators to what he likes to think of as his performance pieces, he told The Associated Press on Tuesday that it will be a challenge to break a record requiring him to remain still and calm amid the hubbub of a live studio audience.
Still, he said, the crowds have always contributed to his success.
When you commit to it and there’s people watching, you kind of have to stick to it. You can’t back out, you can’t fade away and you can’t cheat, he said.
If I was doing it alone, I’d probably be off sneaking out of the box in London or grabbing some food, he said with a laugh, speaking in a conference room in a Harpo Productions building a couple blocks from Winfrey’s television studio.
Through nutrition, light cardio workouts and cutting out alcohol and caffeine Blaine said he’s been able to lower his resting heart rate to about 38 beats per minute, similar to that seen in highly conditioned endurance-trained athletes. E-mail to a friend
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