Natalia Molchanova, who is missing and presumed dead aged 53, was widely regarded as the world’s greatest free-diver; she held 41 world records in disciplines ranging from holding her breath under water to diving to a depth of more than 100 metres on a single breath.
Free-divers rely on their ability to hold their breath. They push their minds and bodies to unimaginable extremes, descending to great depths, sometimes with the aid of weights or fins. Competitive free-divers also engage in breath holding competitions, both under the sea and while lying still in a pool. They rely on what is known as the “mammalian dive reflex” – a reaction to cold water around the face that slows the heart rate and shifts blood from the extremities to the core of the body – to enable them to hold their breath for extended periods of time.
Natalia Molchanova was the female world record-holder in seven of the eight free-diving disciplines and at nine minutes and two seconds she held the world record for static apnea (holding the breath while lying face down in a pool). Her real love, however, was sea diving. “Compared to the ocean,” she once said, “the pool is like running on a treadmill versus running in the forest.”
Free-divers often talk of the sense of calm achieved when the breath is suspended. Furthermore, during the course of a deep dive the free-diver’s lungs become so compressed by the pressure of the water that the diver becomes negatively buoyant and will sink without having to propel downwards. The dangers, however, range from blackouts, hallucinations and unconsciousness to being swept away by underwater currents.
Natalia Molchanova in the depths
On August 2 Natalia Molchanova was performing a recreational dive off the coast of Ibiza. She went down to a depth of about 30 to 40 metres, not nearly as deep as her record of 127 metres. It is thought that she may have been caught in a current and because she was diving with weights and without fins she would have been unable to fight against it. She never resurfaced.
Natalia Vadimovna Molchanova was born on May 8 1962 in Ufa, Bashkortostan, which was then part of the Soviet Union. In her youth she was an Olympic swimmer, but she abandoned the sport at the age of 20 after the birth of her son. Twenty years later she returned to the water, this time as a free-diver. She quickly gained recognition for her ability, setting a national record in 2003 at the Russian championships. She also became the first woman to free dive beneath the blue hole in Dahab, on the coast of the Red Sea, a treacherous stretch of water some 55 metres deep which is also known as the divers’ cemetery, in reference to the numerous scuba divers who have died there.
She taught free-diving alongside her son at the Russian State University for Physical Education, and founded the Free-diving Federation of Russia.
Fiercely competitive but with a gentle temperament, Natalia Molchanova regarded free-diving as a way of life rather than just a sport. “Birth and death are important,” she explained, “but free-diving competitions are just games for adults.”
She saw the time she spent under water as a state of transcendence. In addition to publishing two instruction manuals and numerous articles about the sport, she wrote a collection of poetry inspired by her experiences underwater. “I have perceived non existence,” she wrote, “the silence of eternal dark, and the infinity.”
She is survived by her son, Alexey Molchanov, a champion free-diver, and her daughter, Oksana.
Natalia Molchanova, born May 8 1962, died August 2 2015
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