Artnik improves world record further

Artnik, 41, first set her personal best in the discipline at the competition at 107 metres, and then beat the world record at 109 m, which she improved by two more metres on Sunday.

The record was confirmed on the website of the competition. Her dive lasted 3:41 minutes, she needed just below two minutes to reach the 111 metre mark, surfacing to the applause of judges and competition officials.

"I was really tired. At around 40 metres I was thinking I'm gonna turn. It was like I didn't feel it ... But then I said to myself let's just kick a little bit more. Then I came to the freefall and felt really nice but I knew it's going to be really hard in the end. Then everything happened and it was a really good dive," Artnik said in a statement for the competition.

"I'm happy I did it and I'm also happy that it's over," she added after the nine-day competition in the Bahamas. This year she did a lot of pool training, which she did not have the chance to do in the past two years. "I could really feel that it paid off," she said about another reason behind her success.

Artnik has been a freediver for just over a decade and has set a number of milestones, including in 2017 when she became the fourth woman ever to dive 100 metres deep.

She is considered one of the greatest freedivers ever, and set world records six times between 2018 and 2021; until recently she was a record-holder in monofin with 122 metres, set in 2021.