Nataliia Zharkova is a Ukrainian competitive freediver who this year (2025), returned to the competition scene after a four year break and won overall silver in the CMAS World Championships, diving deeper than 100m in three disciplines.

She first appeared on the podcast on episode #66

In this episode we discuss:

Nataliia’s first appearance  on the podcast was episode #66.
Nataliia was in Dubai at the rime of recording.
Nataliia took a four year break from high-level freediving competitions.
Nataliia won overall silver during the recent CMAS World Championships in 2025.
Her opinions on the incident around Andrey Matveenko’s accident in training before this competition.
How long was the preparatory period for the World Championships?
A breakdown of the year long period of training.
How does she do her tabata workout?
How did taking time off from training benefit Nataliia?
Is OnlyFans getting in to feeediving?
How does she balance training and coaching?
What kind of strength training regimen does she have?
Why did Nataliia not do CNF this year in the World Championships?
Working on tweaking equalisation for the deeper dives and tweaking neutral buoyancy.
Experiences with narcosis
Attitude towards diet and nutrition.
The joys of quitting coffee.
We discuss the doping scandal in freediving in depth.
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What does representing Ukraine mean for her?
Why does she freedive?

For all episodes of The Freedive Cafe Podcast, information about freediving courses, coaching, workshops and retreats in Dahab, Egypt, visit www.truedepthfreediving.com

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