Alessia Zecchini, the deepest woman in the world is even deeper
The story of the deepest woman in the world begins in Turin, in 2011 and arrives today in the waters of the Philippines, where Alessia Zecchini dived to -107 meters and then to -109 meters, setting the new world record in constant weight freediving with fins. Two dives of 3.26 and 3.38 minutes respectively, an out of the ordinary feat that adds to a career that has already taken her to the top of the world - which also seems a paradox for a freediver.
Alessia is a woman with a contagious smile, Roman inflection and a body that allows her to reach unthinkable limits for those who, like us, can't go down more than a couple of metres. Nothing particularly extreme, on first impression. Who knows why one imagines that anyone who challenges the deep must be a giant, to take in as much air as possible before the dive. Wrong. Alessia, like other freedivers, is anything but a colossus: she is thin, of normal height, with long muscles. Rather, the clear blue of her eyes and her smile are striking. However, she has above average lung capacity, which expands with breathing techniques and training.
Her dive begins as a child, when she goes underwater in search of shells, continues with the girl who discovers freediving courses after swimming and continues with that of a woman who has now collected about forty records. She starts from minus 1.5 meters, continues with minus 15, minus 40 - she goes beyond the point of fall, when the force of the sea does not repel, but attracts and pushes in depth-; minus 52.3, minus 81, minus 90, minus 102, minus 107, minus… Constant buoyancy (the weights are always the same), descent and ascent by force of arms, legs and mind, single or double fin.
A dive that also overcomes adverse currents. Alessia suffered from eating disorders as a child. “I've asked myself many times what was the reason that pushed me to mistreat my body, to secretly steal energy from it as if I were a vampire of myself, but still today I can't find precise answers; only clues, hypotheses. Perhaps it all started from that first swimming course and from the obligation to put on a bathing suit: I saw myself as too abundant, too chubby, I didn't like myself very much… ”, she writes in her book“ Acqua ”(Il Saggiatore).
The first successes, on the debut, are in a swimming pool in Turin, at the Italian championships, with two silver medals. And after that, she never stopped. Her first world record dates back to 2013, at the Italian championships in Ischia, -81m in constant weight with a monofin (Cmas). She becomes the deepest woman in the world in 2017, at the Vertical Blue of the Bahamas, with -104, in the same typology. She improves it in 2018, with -105m; which become -112 meters in 2019 with monofin, then -113 without monofin again in 2019; -115 in 2021 always with monofin. Other primates are added, in the different freediving disciplines and the different acronyms (a divided way).
The queen specialty is constant trim with single fin, followed immediately by double fin. And Alessia became the deepest here too, with its -109 meters, in the waters of Moalboal, an area located in the south-western part of the island of Cebu, in the center of the archipelago of the Visayas Islands, during the descents of the Secret Blue, for Aida, the International Association for the Development of Apnea. An absolute record, which exceeds that for the CMAS (World Underwater Federation) of -106.00 meters of the Slovenian Alenka Artnik and greatly improves the -97.00 meters of the French Marianna Gillespie, the previous one for Aida.
“It was a wonderful performance, for which I was already ready last year, except that I arrived at last year's Kaş World Championship very tired. And, therefore, I had failed. This year I tried to review some situations and, thanks to the help of my coaches, Gianfranco Concas and Vitomir Maricic, I managed to develop processes that allowed me to be able to make these truly magnificent dives, with an awareness, a control and a pleasure never had before, he says. On his Facebook he also says that he dedicates this record to the sea: “"I dedicate this wonderful dive in my beloved blue to the sea, because it is the immense love I feel for him and for freediving that has given me ever more unique and wonderful emotions and it allowed me to meet wonderful people all over the world”.
At the end of the post, three more words. “Happiness. Gratitude. Freedom". Happiness, gratitude, freedom.
