World champion free-diver perished while teaching Russian tycoon
SHE wrote poetry, designed swimwear, zipped around Moscow on a scooter, regularly strapped weights to her body and starved her brain of oxygen to dive to ever greater depths on a single breath.
A week after Natalia Molchanova, the world’s greatest freediver, disappeared off the coast of Ibiza, mystery surrounds how such an accomplished swimmer failed to resurface from a relatively shallow dive while teaching beginners.
The Russian’s disappearance has thrown the spotlight on the curious world of free-diving, a perilous sport in which participants see how deep they can dive without oxygen tanks – and regularly black out underwater.
Often they have to be prodded back into consciousness after resurfacing, their faces blue and bodies limp.
At 53, an age when most athletes are long retired, Molchanova was the world’s undisputed diving queen.
She could hold her breath for 9 minutes 2 seconds – a world record – and had broken so many other barriers of endurance that she was known as ‘‘the Machine’’. In May she achieved her 41st world record – a 71-metre dive without fins in waters off Egypt.
‘‘She was a true legend,’’ said Herbert Nitsch, 45, the men’s world champion.
‘‘She was a phenomenal athlete,’’ said Sara Campbell, 43, the British free-diving champion who competed against her until retiring in 2011. ‘‘The first time I saw her I felt I was watching someone perform superhuman feats. She was an inspiration to women.’’
Molchanova took up the sport at 40 – when most free-divers are considering retirement – after bringing up her two children. Within a year she was dominating free-diving events all over the world.
‘‘I saw her explode on the scene at her first international competition in 2003,’’ said Stephen Whelan, a free-diving commentator who runs the website deeperblue.com. ‘‘I’d never seen anything like it. She became a superstar.’’
Julia Petrik, a friend who helped her pioneer free-diving in Russia, said Molchanova had ‘‘shown everybody in the world that human capabilities are unlimited. Almost all world records were made by her.’’
When she disappeared she was not in pursuit of a record but giving lessons to a Russian tycoon on holiday in Spain. Pavel Tyo, owner of a Moscow property company, had sailed with two friends on his superyacht Pumpkin from his home in Ibiza to the nearby island of Formentera for the privilege of being tutored by Molchanova.
They boarded a rigid inflatable boat to head a couple of kilometres into deep blue water. Conditions seemed perfect, with clear skies and a light breeze over the Balearic Sea.
Molchanova was wearing the distinctive purple wetsuit that she had designed in pursuit of low buoyancy. It was part of an eponymous swimwear label that she had launched with her son, Alexey Molchanov, also a diver.
According to Alexey, on a beginner’s course his mother would have dropped a line of about 20 metres from the boat at the dive point where the sea bed lay 80 metres below. The line is for divers to hold on to as they descend.
Before diving, students are taught to breathe deeply, inhaling for a few seconds then exhaling twice as long and deep, employing yoga techniques to reduce the heart rate and use oxygen efficiently.
Students typically take turns descending, first to 10 metres, then 15 and eventually to 20 metres, holding the line and surfacing to relax in between. As both instructor and safety diver, Molchanova would dive alongside them each time.
According to her son, between instructional dives, she did her own training dives to around 35 metres, attaching a neck weight to help her get down. From one of these she failed to resurface.
Unlike in usual training sessions, she had no safety diver and was not attached by lanyard to the line.
The group reported Molchanova missing at 5pm on Sunday, August 2 (local time). A police underwater unit with five divers was deployed from Ibiza within minutes. A helicopter and a rescue ship were called in and all local shipping alerted. On Tuesday a private company was hired with a robot capable of searching to a depth of 500 metres.
But the underwater search was abandoned after three days when it was determined they were no longer looking for a survivor but a body.
Campbell, who had known Molchanova for nine years and once broke three of her records, was stunned when she heard the news.
‘‘For someone of Natalia’s stature, to disappear on a 35-metre dive goes against everything,’’ she said. ‘‘It’s a mystery. It would suggest there was a strong underwater current, because she’s the strongest diver I know.’’
Unless her body is found, what happened will remain unknown. ‘‘It seems she’ll stay in the sea,’’ said her son. ‘‘I think she would like that.’’
Others wonder if she hit her head on something or blacked out from lack of oxygen with no safety diver to bring her up.
Her drowning has shocked the tight-knit free-diving community which, according to Whelan, numbers less than 500 worldwide.
Free-diving is only about 20 years old as a modern competitive movement, though it dates back to the time of the ancient Greek sport skandalopetra, when men held big rocks and dived as deep as they could. It was the subject of a Luc Besson movie, The Big Blue, about two rival free-divers.
‘‘The unfortunate consequence is it gets labelled as an extreme sport,’’ said Whelan.
Campbell agrees. ‘‘I know non free-divers think we’re all crazy risk-takers, but free-diving is actually the most natural thing a human can do,’’ she said. ‘‘If you immerse your face in water your heart slows, the mammalian instinct means your body knows how to keep you alive in water.
‘‘It’s the most incredible feeling,’’ she said. ‘‘There is nothing like being on breathhold to make you forget all the rubbish that fills 99 per cent of our days.’’
However, Campbell admits she has had three blackouts. ‘‘Every time I had a blackout I’ve taken time to regroup before going back, and questioned if I was pushing myself too much. Natalia was different, she could have a blackout and get back into the water the next day.’’
She cites a Molchanova quote that many of the Russian’s fans have been posting. ‘‘Free-diving is not only a sport, it’s a way to understand who we are.’’