Archana makes 2 national records for India in Freediving

Mumbai, Aug 01: Archana Sankara Narayanan hailing from Chennai, Tamilnadu made 2 national records for India in Freediving in the AIDA Depth Games competition held in Panglao, Philippines on 15th and 16th July, 2024 by breaking the previous record of 30m and then broke her own record of 31m on the next day with 35m in Free Immersion discipline.

Freediving is an underwater sport of diving to a considerable depth without any breathing support (scuba tank is used in scuba diving for breathing support). She also personally holds the record of going down to 42m which is the deepest level an Indian female freediver has gone.

Archana says that she has been very fortunate to train under her coach, Shubham Pandey who holds the current national record for India in the male category and the most generous coach anyone could wish for.

She is a lawyer by profession and worked at one of the top law firms of India, AZB & Partners before making her way into the diving world while visiting Andaman Islands where she became a Divemaster in scuba diving and a rescue diver. She saw Shubham's videos online where he was diving without any scuba tank which got her curious and decided to learn Freediving from July, 2023. She has dived and trained all over Asia including Andaman Islands, Murudeshwar, Thailand, Indonesia and now Philippines. She hopes that more Indian women take up this sport because it is very empowering and “freeing” (pun intended). Freediving requires one to be relaxed to dive deeper. Archana says that it has given her so much peace and made her feel one with the ocean.