On a single breath, Victoria Deonarine descended 50 metres into Dominica’s Soufrière Bay and swam back to the surface, setting a new Trinidad and Tobago women’s freediving record at the Blue Element competition on Tuesday 10 November. She competed in constant weight bifins, a discipline in which divers use a separate fin on each foot and carry the same weight down and back up.
For the Williamsville athlete, it was a five-metre improvement on the national record she set at the same competition last November. Deonarine began freediving at 16 after looking for a new challenge beyond swimming and snorkelling. While attending St Stephen’s College, she fitted pool sessions and open-water practice off Trinidad’s northwestern peninsula around school. When funding was hard to come by for last year’s competition, family, friends and strangers helped her get to Dominica.
A year later, she went five metres deeper. Congratulations, Victoria, on a new national record and a proud moment for Williamsville and Trinidad and Tobago.