Ukrainian Kateryna Sadurska became the 2026 world champion in freediving. The CWT competition opened the World Championship in Roatan (Honduras). Two Ukrainian freedivers took part – Sadurska and Natalia Zharkova.
Sadurska declared a depth of 108 meters and successfully reached it, recording her result. Only two athletes declared a higher figure – Zharkova and Italian Alessia Zecchini set a mark at a depth of 121 meters.
Zecchini, however, failed to reach the declared depth and turned around at 114 meters. The total penalty for the Italian was 8 meters; she also returned to the surface without a marker and won the “silver” with a final result of 106 meters.
Zharkova instead received a disqualification of her result. The reigning world champion in the CWT discipline reached the declared depth of 121 meters, but on the surface she suffered a blackout – the mark was not counted.
This is Sadurska’s first “gold” in the CWT discipline at the CMAS World Championships. She had previously won the titles of champion in free diving (FIM) and constant weight diving without fins (CNF).
We should add that in the previous two years, Sadurska twice stopped one step short of the awards at the CMAS World Championship in constant-weight diving with fins: she finished fourth with results of 103 m (2024) and 98 m (2025).
