Pan Pacific title to Arrowtown architect
NEW Zealand national freedive champion Kathryn Nevatt has won three gold medals and the overall title at the Pan Pacific Freediving Championship in Tokyo.
The Arrowtown architect held her breath underwater for 7min 23sec to win the ‘‘static apnea’’ competition.
She swam 198m underwater on a single breath wearing a monofin to win in ‘‘dynamic apnea’’, and 156m on a single breath doing underwater breaststroke to win ‘‘dynamic apnea without fins’’.
The three victories mean Nevatt (38) has regained her title of Pan Pacific Champion.
‘‘I’ve trained hard for this event and am really pleased that I managed to pull it all together when it counted,’’ she said.
That training included four pool sessions and two dry sessions — sitting in her local park ‘‘turning blue’’, she said.
‘‘It’s been a couple of years since I competed internationally and this is the first time I’ve managed a clean sweep of gold medals abroad.’’
Fellow Kiwi freediver Suzy Malseed (41) won the silver medal for dynamic apnea with 193m and came fourth in the dynamic without fins with 131m.
Malseed now lives in Australia and made a convincing comeback to the sport after a break of several years during which she became a mother to twins.
New Zealand took third place behind Japan and New Caledonia in the teams competition, based on the points of the top three divers in each event.
The New Zealand team consisted of divers ranging from for mer world champion/medallists to beginners; Nevatt, Malseed, John Wright, Nathanial Fairweather, Damien Jones and Rosemary Freeman.
The championships were held on March 2224.