Alenka Artnik's origin story produces chills, in more ways than one. In a stunning piece for the Long Read, Xan Rice details a 2010 night on a Slovenian bridge when the almost-30-year-old—weighed down by her father's psychological abuse and the death of her mother and her stepbrother—nearly decided to end it all. That she didn't jump is just the start of Artnik's path to becoming the best female freediver in the world. There's a short lag in her story. It was only a year later that a former boyfriend who had been building up his spearfishing abilities by swimming distances underwater invited her to join. She was good, as good as all the men doing it. And she felt a feeling that has become foreign to her. Peace. She signed up for a class taught by Slovenian freediver Jure Daic, and Rice details her wow moment:
By the end of the weekend course, top divers should be able to swim 75 meters underwater; that's three pool-lengths. "On the course’s second day, Alenka swims one length, two lengths, three lengths, and keeps going. At 92 meters one of her fins falls off. Instead of ending her dive she turns around underwater, retrieves the fin, puts it back on, and completes the length. She is angry when she gets out, explaining she wanted to reach 120 meters. Jaws drop around the pool. Most of the others did not even make it to 50 meters." A fascinating side note: Daic was wowed, but slightly perplexed. He had trained top athletes, and physically, Artnik was typical. What set her apart, he thought, was the trauma she had been through, and the mental toughness she developed to survive it. (Read the full piece to learn more about Artnik's career and the time she spent with Natalia Molchanova, the famed freediver who went missing in 2015.)
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