World record free diver shares insights with Brighton swim enthusiasts

Over 130 swim enthusiasts joined Alessia and broadcaster & Brighton resident Marco Montemagno for a Q&A session on her life and career to date.

Alessia Zecchini, is a World Record holding free diver with an incredible 35 world records and 17 world titles to her name. In 2019 she became the first woman to have reached a depth of 100m exclusively with the use of her arms (free immersion).

The Q&A focused on how she started out on her freediving journey, through to some of her favourite dive sites all laced with anecdotes and memories.

Alessia said: “Meeting fellow water enthusiasts and sharing my story and passion for freediving is what I love to do. The Sea Lanes audience were great and interested in what I had to talk about and all in all it made for a rewarding day at Sea Lanes for me.”

Alessia is the subject of Netflix’s The Deepest Breath, which documents a traumatic 2017 incident in Alessia’s life, where she and her partner, Irish free diver Stephan Keenan, participated in a training dive in Dahab, Egypt, only for the latter to never return. Moving on from this terrible loss, Alessia is the epitome of overcoming adversity.

Marco Montemagno, hosted the event and said: “Alessia is an inspiration and the adversity that she has overcome is inspiring. Sea Lanes was a great location to do the talk in. The distances people travelled to come to hear and to meet a legend of Freediving, shows that there is a spirit of adventure in all of us!”

The event is the first of its kind at Sea Lanes Brighton and raised vital funds for Brighton Surf Lifesaving Club. To keep up to date with future events at Sea Lanes visit https://www.sealanesbrighton.co.uk/