Into the Blue: Williamsville teen redefines freediving in TT

VIDIA RAMPHAL

VICTORIA Deonarine still can’t quite shake the awesome feeling she felt after she completed the deepest dive of her life.

On November 21, the 18-year-old St Stephen’s College student smashed her own national record with an incredible 45-metre dive at the Blue Element competition in Soufriere, Dominica.

Deonarine also surpassed the men’s national record of 40 meters—her previous record was also 40 meters—at Soufriere.

Her performance did not just make waves; it rewrote the local boundaries of the sport—a sport which relies on breath-holding until resurfacing rather than the use of breathing apparatus.

“Honestly, I’m still on a high from it,” Deonarine told Newsday, “It still feels surreal thinking about it because it is everything that I have been working towards and more.”

Deonarine dove to depths of 40 meters in practice, but the dive she attempted on that fateful day in Dominica put her into uncharted territory.

“I didn’t really know what to expect,” she said, “In the past, I never would have dove as deep as that. So, I was a bit nervous.”

However, Deonarine found her centre when she hit her starting mark.

“As soon as I was on the line, with all of the safety divers around me, I got into the zone before my dive,” she said.

“I felt calm, I felt capable because I knew that all of my training that I did was preparing me for that specific moment.”

When Deonarine surfaced, triumphant and oxygen-starved, she made a heart-shaped sign with her fingers.

“I felt really, excited,” she remembered, draping the national flag over her shoulders before hoisting a small sign declaring her new national record.

“I’m just really proud to be able to carry my (Trinidad and Tobago) flag, to new depths, to represent TT by doing what I love,” Deonarine said.

What surprised her even more than the dive itself was the reaction afterwards—interview requests, messages from strangers, and a sudden wave of interest in a sport that most people in TT have never heard of.

“(I’m) really happy, because I think that by my completing that dive, it would be the perfect way for freediving to become a more known and more popular sport in Trinidad and Tobago,” Deonarine said.

The Williamsville teenager does not see the sport as an exotic niche activity but a natural fit for our twin-island nation.

“There is so much potential for free-diving here,” she said, “We are an island surrounded by beautiful water, and so much can happen because people are just not really aware of freediving.”

Deonarine hopes her journey in freediving will make more people fall in love with the sport and the peace the ocean offers.

“If I can help fan that interest, even a little, then I’m more unhappy,” she said.

Deonarine believes that Trinidad and Tobago has the perfect natural environment to become a hub for major international freediving competitions—like the event she attended in Dominica.

“At the competition in Dominica, there were so many different people from so many different countries, and I think that is one of the most amazing things to me,” she said.

“I feel like if we could be able to have international competitions in Tobago, it would be great for tourism, but it was just be great to get more people involved in the sport,” Deonarine added.

Her coach Saif Mohammed of “Out and Under,” said Deonarine progressed swiftly through intermediate freediver certification, advanced breath-hold training, and first responder preparation.

Mohammed believes that Deonarine has the potential not just to break national records, but to compete with the world’s best..

“We knew from quite early on that she was capable of a lot more than we were seeing early on,” Mohammed said, “There is a possibility that she can even go up for world records and not just national records.”

Deonarine harbors these ambitions, but she is not getting carried away—at least not yet.

“My focus now is on school,” she said, “After my exams, I will surely keep up my training consistency.”

“If this becomes a more organized sport here, I feel like I do have the capability and the will to represent on an international platform,” Deonarine added.

She may be focused on exams rather than international podiums, but Deonarine’s calm ascent in the sport seems to suggest that her breakthrough is only the beginning.

For the young freediver from Williamsville, the depths are calling—and she seems ready to answer.