Alexey Molchanov
Alexey Molchanov (, born 6 March 1987) is a Russian champion freediver, 34-time world champion (AIDA and CMAS), world record holder, and freediving promoter. He is also president of the "Freediving Federation" association, president of AIDA Russia, head of freediving school named in honor of Natalia Molchanova, and designer and engineer of the freediving equipment brand Molchanovs. Alexey is a son of Natalia Molchanova – multiple champion and world record holder in freediving. Career Molchanov achieved his first world record in 2008 in a pool discipline called Dynamic Apnea, in which he swam 250m underwater with a monofin on one breath. Since then he focused on the depth disciplines and began to compete in the open water. In 2012, Molchanov set a world record in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, when he dived to 125m using a monofin. Later that year, Alexey broke his own world record with a dive to 126m in Dean's Blue Hole in the Bahamas. Alexey broke this record again at the 2013 AIDA World Championships in Kalamata, Greece, where he dived on one breath to 128m and returned to surface under difficult conditions. He extended that record to 129m in Baja in 2016. In 2018, Alexey dived