Natalia Molchanova

Natalia Vadimovna Molchanova, born in 1962 in Ufa, Bashkortostan, was a Russian freediver and the former president of the Russian Free Dive Federation, often described as possibly the greatest freediver in the history of the sport. She trained as a swimmer in her youth, semi-retired for about twenty years after the birth of her two children, and resumed training at forty, setting a national record at her first freediving competition, the 2003 Russian championships. Over her career she set 42 world records and won 22 world championship medals, 19 of them gold, and in 2009 she became the first woman to dive past 100 metres in constant weight. She disappeared on 2 August 2015 while giving a private lesson off Formentera and was presumed dead; her son Alexey Molchanov is also a champion freediver.