"World's Greatest" Free Diver Goes For A Dive Annnnnnnd Never Comes Back Up

News- Spain has called off an underwater search for missing freediving champion Natalia Molchanova who disappeared while diving off the Balearic Islands. The county’s maritime rescue service and police say they will now be concentrating their operations on monitoring the surface of the Mediterranean Sea for any sign of the 53-year-old Russian. International diving federation AIDA said in a statement that Molchanova was diving on Sunday without fins at a depth of between 30m and 40m (100ft and 130ft) off the coast of Formentera when she supposedly swam into strong underwater currents. The alert was raised late on Sunday and a specialist police underwater unit with five divers was sent from the neighbouring island of Ibiza within minutes.

Whoops!  Sorry, lady.  We’re gonna have to take that “world’s greatest free diver” title away and give it to someone else.  You understand.  You’re dead.  We can’t have the world’s greatest free diver be a person who died while free diving.  It wouldn’t make any sense and would set the bar pretty low for future free divers.  Not to speak ill of the dead but dying down there might actually make her the world’s worst free diver if you really think about it.  And don’t say I’m being too harsh on this free diver lady who died.  She knew the risks going into it.  It’s like those people who sky dive or bungee jump or base jump.  You don’t pick a hobby like free diving if you don’t kinda sorta have a death wish.  The hobby itself makes no sense at all.  People who do it are very aware that there is equipment that can help them breathe underwater, right?  Of course they are.  The equipment has been around forever and they’re still just like, “Nah, I’ll use my lungs.  It’ll be fine” until it’s not fine and they never come back up.  Free divers even go as far as to attach weights to themselves so they’ll sink and be able to go deeper.  What?  That to me sounds like a person who’s on the fence about committing suicide so they’ll just see what happens each time.