Panerai tests Luminor Marina with døds athlete Côme Girardot in Greenland

Italian watchmaker Panerai, part of the Swiss luxury group Richemont, has added French athlete Côme Girardot to its 'Adventurers' community, a group of explorers and athletes who wear and test the brand's watches outside laboratory conditions. Girardot wore the Luminor Marina during a Greenland expedition in which he performed what Panerai describes as the first døds jump from an iceberg.

Girardot competes in døds, an extreme freefall discipline popularized in Norway in which athletes jump from height into water. He won the Team World Champion title in the discipline in 2025. His return to competition follows a serious accident that left him with two fractured and dislocated vertebrae and, initially, uncertainty over whether he would walk again.

Three-phase expedition

Girardot's Greenland expedition ran from May 7 to 19 and consisted of three phases: ski touring, freeriding in Arctic conditions for acclimatization, and cold-water training. It concluded with a 20-meter jump from an iceberg while wearing a Luminor Marina; Panerai states this corresponds to a theoretical impact speed of around 20 meters per second, or nearly 70 kilometers an hour, on entering the water.

The expedition is documented in a YouTube video that introduces Panerai's new 'Tested in Real Conditions' series, as well as in a 35-minute documentary titled 'Le CômeBack'.

Watches used

Three references from the Luminor Marina line were used during the expedition. The Luminor Marina PAM03312, in steel, was worn for the final jump; the Luminor Marina Titanio PAM03325, in Grade 5 titanium, and the Luminor Marina PAM03323 were used during the expedition's physical phases. All three are 44mm cases with Panerai's crown-protecting bridge and a stated water resistance beyond 50 bar, or about 500 meters.

Girardot said: "Greenland was not just another jump. It was the point where everything came together: recovery, preparation, fear, confidence, and the desire to return. In this kind of environment, every piece of equipment must be trustworthy. Panerai was with me throughout the expedition, from the days on the ice to the final iceberg mission, like my most faithful measuring instrument."

Reliability testing

Panerai says it applies a two-tier testing approach to every watch: representative batches of each model undergo laboratory testing meant to simulate years of wear, while every finished watch is individually tested underwater before delivery, with water-resistance checks performed 25 percent beyond the stated specification. Watches also go through thermal cycling between 70°C and 5°C and lifecycle tests that compress roughly a decade of use into weeks, including millions of winding cycles and tens of thousands of crown, bezel and pusher activations, along with corrosion, impact and drop testing.