Vera Giampietro was born in Bellinzona, Switzerland, in 1990. She studied and lived in Lausanne for 10 years. She discovered freediving in 2018, became an instructor and started competing on the same year, but an unfortunate event forced out of the water for two years. A medical mistake in an Egyptian hospital caused her a huge eardrum perforation. Even in Europe, doctors told her that she would have never dived again. The first two surgeries failed within a couple of weeks. In 2020, she moved back to Egypt during the pandemic to reconnect with the sea and decided to start diving anyways during her stay in Sinai. After only two weeks, she broke all the Swiss depth records winning gold medals in her first competition after years dry.

Vera never gave up on her dream of freediving and in the following years, she had 3 more surgeries and still managed to keep breaking records in international competitions, qualify and participate in 2 World Championships. In 2023, her 5th attempt to fix the perforation finally worked and after one year of downtime, Vera could finally start diving again in March 2024. The results of her first year competing after finally healing speak for themselves: 7 new National Records on the same year.

In June 2025, Vera finally broke her first World Record, diving to 50m/165ft in the black waters of a Mexican cenote (fresh water) without fins. This milestone is a testimony of her resilience and it will hopefully inspire and help others to find the strength to overcome adversity and follow their dreams.

Yoga, freediving, rock climbing and ski instructor, athlete, sailor, Vera is in love with movement and nature. She is based between Switzerland and Egypt, travelling all over the world to train and compete. She finances most of her expenses organising freediving related activities, motivational speeches and workshops. .