“The Deepest Woman on Earth” with the world record depth of 123m, freediver Alessia Zecchini has a special love of the water. The 32 year old Italian phenom, made more popular by the Netflix documentary The Deepest Breath, continues to push the boundaries of freediving but it’s not her competitive drive that makes her so successful, it’s her deep, unwavering, and innate love of the water. 

When did you start freediving and was it love at first sight? 

Since I was so small, I just loved to be in the water—it was my world. I really hate to swim on the surface but when I discovered this word under the water, I just really fell in love. Since I was 7 or 8, my parents brought me away for holidays but when I was 11 I understood that what I loved was free diving. 

When I was 13, I immediately understood. In a text at school where my teacher was asking what you want to do when you become an adult and I wrote: I want to become a professional freediver. From that moment my parents started to be more afraid of course because they understood it was not just to dive in the pool, but my main goal was to dive deeper and deeper and deeper because I love to be in the sea.

Now, it’s unbelievable, it’s the same feeling that I want to discover what is inside the cave, or just to look at the blue and enjoy it because I love so much the blue. It's my favorite color and to be surrounded by just blue.

You started competing in the pool at just 13 years old and then added open water, going on to break 38 world records, win countless medals in national and international competition, across all the disciplines in the pool and open water. What keeps you motivated?

I need goals for training and I love to train every day—I need to. I am an athlete, so I love to train.  And so the records are just the goal that I need to have for the effort of training every day.

But we are in the most beautiful place in the world, so it's not about records. The records are just the consequences of our training, because we need goals.  So, of course we do records but for me the most exciting thing is to dive with dolphins, with whales, with sealions. That is the most beautiful thing I ever did in my life.

What does your training look like? Is it different throughout the year?

For the preparation period, it's three times gym, three times pool. In the gym you build strength, a bit of resistance, and you increase CO2 and O2 capacity. Also aerobic training and I love to use rollerblades, or bikes, and sometimes in the first part of the year I also do a bit of climbing. 

I use THEMEGIC5 goggles in the pool. They really are super, super useful. I love the view and they really are so comfortable. If one day I will compete again in the pool, I will use them. 

When I arrive close to the specific preparation, I start to do a bit less quantity and more quality in the training, always with the same goals. And when I am in the place of competition, I just do one day of diving and then one or two days off. On the day off, I still do gym because during our dives we are losing a lot of muscles so it's important.

You’ve been freediving for your entire teenage and adult life, what is something new you are working on now?

The years before I understood how important it was to rest but I'm learning year by year still. Seventeen years but I'm still learning a lot. 

I think we really need the balance. And so I'm trying to find the good balance that I can bring after the water, because it's super important for freediving that you have really a good state of mind. 

What about the technical side? What skills are you perfecting this year?

To build a bit more strength in one discipline because I have had several injuries on my arms in the past six years and surgeries and everything. I’m still struggling a lot with this.

After, I will be focused on equalization. In the past three years with my coach, we really worked a lot to build the dive. Now everything is quite perfect so I just have to repeat the feeling that I lived last year because it was just amazing. I could enjoy every dive without stress, without narcosis. 

I am focused much more and everything comes more naturally and, wow, it’s like magic. My coach helped me a lot, giving me the right things to work on, to think about. I was focusing on every little detail during the dive so I built a step-by-step rule and it worked super good. 

A freediver's mindset is often the most important aspect to a good performance. How has your mindset changed over your career?

I was lucky at the beginning, the first year, that my limit was quite far away.  So, if my mind was not at 100 percent and if I was a bit afraid or stressed, it was not such a big  problem. Now, everything has to be perfect— no thoughts, no bad emotion, or no good emotion. I mean, you have to not feel anything and so last year I understood a bit more how to really control everything.

I can arrive at the platform in the flow and I don't have to think about anything else, just feel the water, look at the sea, look at the little waves and calm myself. And when I start to dive, the only thing that I'm thinking is just what I'm doing in that moment. So you are living the present without paying attention too much to anything that's happening around you. You are there, but that's it.  The environment, the sea around me, it helps me a lot. In a little way, it's like hypnotizing  yourself.

Your journey to break the world record in 2017 and relationship with safety diver Stephen Keenan was the subject of the documentary The Deepest Breath. The film chronicles his death after he saved your life diving the famous Arch in Dahab's Blue Hole. How did the film come about and how do you feel about it now?

I accept [to do the film] only for the reason that my goal was that Steven has to be remembered. He was too special for be forgotten. It took five years but because it's out in the open now, I feel that the goal was reached. I mean everybody loves Steve—the result was good. 

Steven helped me so much, for changing my life. He saved my life twice. I was so lucky to meet him. 

What are you most proud of as a freediver?

So many young people are starting to freedive and their parents allow them to do it. I was afraid a lot because the film was not this direction but I received so many messages from kids saying they want to become like me, they love the ocean, they start to do a course— and so this is amazing. It started when I speak in the schools and now with the film, kids or people that say thanks, you changed my life, you changed my way of thinking about my life—it's something incredible and I'm really proud of.

How do you feel about the water? Have you ever been scared of the water?

Everything is perfect in the water. So for me it's the place that I saved myself. The only fear that I had every time before was to make mistakes but the mistake is from myself. I'm not afraid of the ocean because really it's the thing that I love most—and I think you can be afraid of something that you love.

What is your goal this season?

To enjoy every single dive, like I did last year, and to have discipline—to know exactly what I have to do in every second of my dive and to have control 100% of my dive. That is my main goal.

Describe freediving in three words:

Wonderful. Peaceful. Freedom.