New milestones in competitive freediving have been marked in the Red Sea, where Ukrainian athlete Nataliia Zharkova has set new AIDA women’s world records in two disciplines in the space of a week.
The first came on the opening day of the AIDA Only One competition in Egypt’s Sharm el Sheikh on 20 May, in the Constant Weight Bi-Fins (CWTB) category. Zharkova reached a depth of 112m on a single breath – and described her feat as “only the beginning”.
“Usually I don’t set such big goals for the first dives of the season, so emotionally it was more difficult than many other starts,” she said afterwards. “There was a small current on the surface, the water temperature was 25°C, a little colder than usual in the Red Sea at this time of year, but everything went well.
“I coped with my nerves, decided to try and I’m very glad that everything worked out. This is the result of training, trust in the process and proper preparation.”
Her performance continued a strong run of recent results, after sharing the CMAS world title in CWTB with Italian champion Alessia Zecchini last year. The AIDA world record had been held by Alenka Artnik of Slovenia since 2023, when she set the bar at 111m in the Bahamas.
Zharkova was not finished there. On the final day of the AIDA Only One competition, organised by Sharm’s Only One Apnea Centre, Zharkova broke her second world record by reaching a depth of 106m in Free Immersion (FIM). This discipline is one of the purest, as divers descend and ascend only by pulling on the dive-line rather than using fins.
The previous AIDA record of 105m had been set only the previous month, by Hungarian freediver Zsófia Törőcsik. “On Friday I lost my tag, so yesterday I took two,” said Zharkova. “The current was so strong that I was sure something had got caught on my lanyard – that’s how much drag I felt on it. I even tried to adjust whatever seemed wrong…
“Only after 30m did the usual calm finally come – this was a character-building dive!”
CMAS Variable Weight records
Separate CMAS-sanctioned record attempts held in Sharm earlier in May also produced two women’s world records for Germany’s Jennifer Wendland.
She achieved a depth of 120m in the Variable Weight Monofin (VWT-MF) discipline on 5 May and, two days later, 101m in Variable Weight Bi-Fins (VWT-BF).
The previous VWT-MF record was 116m, set in 2022 in Sharm by Lena Balta from Serbia. Wendland’s bi-fins record dive, which she completed in 2min 27sec, was a first, because no previous CMAS world record had been registered.
AIDA classifies Variable Weight, which involves descending using a weighted sled and ascending either by swimming with fins or pulling on the dive-line, as a “record-only discipline”. It is not included in its standard multi-day competitions because of the increased fatigue and decompression risks associated with this style of freediving.
AIDA has a single Variable Weight category, with the women’s world record set at 130m by Netherlands athlete Nanja Van den Broek using a monofin back in 2015.
