The day may have belonged to gold medallist Natalia Molchanova, but for Sara Campbell of Britain silver felt quite sweet. “My strategy was to do something I can do on any day, and my training recently paid off in that 92m is a comfortable dive for me,” she stated after her second place finish. Comfortably diving to the depths of 92m in the AIDA world championships that took place in the Bahamas she was narrowly bested by Molchanova’s 97m distance. This was for the constant weight event which divers are only allowed a single breath in their charge below the ocean’s surface.
Being edged by her Russian rival may feel a bit reminiscent to Campbell as just this past September she had her world record beaten by Molchanava. In reaching a depth of 101m Molchanava shattered the previous mark of 96m, and she still surpassed that distance to claim gold for the AIDA championships. In fact Campbell had expected the Russian to go further and had then tried to factor that into her strategy going in, “I was surprised Natalia didn’t try to go deeper – I was hoping she would over-stretch herself.”
Being that each freediver is held to the distance they report upon entering the competition, should they fail to reach at least that mark they are thereby out of contention. It seems that both women were playing it safe, choosing to go for the gold medal instead of a world record.
Still Campbell can’t feel too bad about her showing as the 92m she reached here is not far off of her personal best of 96m. With continued training she will no doubt keep working to narrow the gap between herself and her competitor.
Natalia’s tour for the championships wasn’t done yet, as she later went on to claim a second gold in the constant weight with no fins event. Her impressive 62m was yet another world record, beating the mark of 60m she had set herself. On the men’s side, it was Herbert Nitsch of Austria who won the title for the men’s constant weight event. However it seemed to be a day for records as New Zealand’s William Trubridge bested his previous world record to claim the gold medal in the men’s constant weight no fins division with his 90m depth.
With the close of the 2009 AIDA world championships both the winners and Sara Campbell will keep aiming to surpass these marks and further test the limits of their physical abilities.
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