On exiting the water Sara said: “That was an amazing dive, extremely easy for me and I kind of wish I’d announced deeper for a Record. The same dive normally takes me over 20 seconds longer than today. It’s incredibly motivating looking forward and I’m looking forward to challenging for the World Record again in the near future.”

The Freediving World Championships attracts the world’s top divers in this extreme sport. Sara’s medal today was the result of months of hard work and training:

“I have been training to these depths and beyond all summer. It is an extremely intense sport – rarely do we ask our body to perform to its absolute limits of survival, but I do it on almost a daily basis in order to increase my performance potential,” said Sara.

Sara’s achievements this year have been astounding; in April this year, less than a year after the death of her mother, Sara set a new World Record of 96m, also in the Bahamas. Since then she has twice attempted and both times narrowly faiild, to achieve the 100m mark.

“I have now made some big changes in my dives and training and feel confident that I could do 100m now. However this competition isn’t about records for me, it’s about the medals, and of course being with so many top-level athletes. Because we know what we each go through to train and make these dives, there is a very deep bond between us all. It feels like one big, maybe slightly crazy, family,” said Sara.