Wairarapa diver takes on world

Martinborough freediver Kathryn Nevatt is aiming high for the world indoor championships to be held in Lignano Sabbiadoro, Italy, from October 6 to 16, and with good reason.
Nevatt (nee McPhee), 31, came away from the 2009 worlds with one silver and two bronze medals to show for her efforts and her rankings suggest she has every chance of at least a repeat performance this time round.
In an event expected to attract 1200 athletes from 30 countries, Nevatt is rated in the top three for static apnea, dynamic apnea and dynamic apnea without fins. She qualified for all three based on her 2010 world rankings, meaning she did not require national selection.
Freediving, also called breath hold or apnea diving, is essentially diving without the assistance of breathing apparatus.
While it is exhilarating it can also be potentially dangerous and for this reason it is heavily regulated to ensure athletes' safety in both training and competition.
The most common forms of freediving in New Zealand are constant weight, which is depth diving with or without fins in the ocean, dynamic apnea, which involves underwater lengths performed in the pool with or without fins and static apnea, which is a time-based breath hold in the pool.
"It is a sport which is open to all ages and backgrounds and which requires minimal equipment ... water and willpower is about all you need," Nevatt says.
Competitive freediving tests the limits of their abilities in time and distance, with the world's best diving to depths of more than 220m and having static breath holds for up to 11 minutes.
Nevatt describes it as "demanding and relaxing, frightening and peaceful" and she has been competing since 2004, gradually working her way from absolute beginner to champion.
She has held a multitude of New Zealand and Oceania titles and in 2008 and 2009 set four unofficial world female records and one unofficial record, the latter coming in the dynamic apnea without fin discipline when she swam breaststroke at a depth of 151m, breaking the old record by two minutes.
Nevatt's best static breath hold is 7m 34s, which places her second on the world female ranking list. In 2008 she was voted "world's best female freediver" in the International Centre for Apnea Recognition and Education (ICARE) awards.
Based in Martinborough, Nevatt works as an architect in Palmerston North during the week and trains weekends at the Masterton indoor pool.
She is in the process of organising a freediving training camp in Masterton for the weekend of August 6 and 7, any profits from which will help towards meeting expenses for the world championships. She is also keen to find a sponsor to help.