Woman sets record swimming for 122 meters underneath Lake Baikal ice

A Russian freediver set a new record by swimming under the ice of Lake Baikal, IRK.ru reports, citing the Freediving Federation.

On March 19, Ekaterina Nekrasova swam 122 meters under the lake’s ice as part of the Under the Ice of Baikal freediving festival. She completed the swim without a wetsuit, wearing only a swimsuit and fins. Her previous record, also set under ice without a wetsuit, was done using the breaststroke without fins, covering 102.7 meters.

Three more records were set during the festival:

• Olga Markina (Russia) dived 71 meters using a monofin.
• Sanda Delija (Croatia) reached a depth of 55 meters, using only a rope for descent and no fins.
• Vitimir Maričić (Croatia) set a new men's record, diving 62 meters.

Let us recall that freediving festival Under the Ice of Baikal began on March 17 in Listvyanka, the Irkutsk region of Russia. Two participants set new records in various categories according to the rules of the Freediving Federation. Olga Markina from Russia renewed her previous world recordg from 2021 as she reached a depth of 71 meters in the CWT discipline (using a monofin).

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Lake Baikal is a rift lake and the deepest lake in the world. It is situated in southern Siberia, Russia between the federal subjects of Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Republic of Buryatia to the southeast. At 31,722 km² (12,248 sq mi)—slightly larger than Belgium—Lake Baikal is the world's seventh-largest lake by surface area, as well as the second largest lake in Eurasia after the Caspian Sea. However, because it is also the deepest lake, with a maximum depth of 1,642 metres (5,387 feet; 898 fathoms), Lake Baikal is the world's largest freshwater lake by volume, containing 23,615.39 km³ (5,670 cu mi) of water or 22–23% of the world's fresh surface water, more than all of the North American Great Lakes combined. It is also the world's oldest lake at 25–30 million years, and among the clearest. Lake Baikal provides not only quality but also quantity and it is estimated that the lake contains around 19% of the unfrozen fresh water on the planet. Lake Baikal is home to thousands of species of plants and animals, many of them endemic to the region.