Tanya Streeter can hold her breath for five and a half minutes. In that time she turns blue and has blood oxygen levels only seen in people who have had cardiac arrest. It took Tanya three minutes and thirty eight seconds to descend to a depth of 400ft below sea level before returning to the surface unaided. She holds the world record for this feat with no-one else getting anywhere near. She is the Paula Radcliffe of free diving.

Try holding your breath and your body will gasp for air because of three things a shortage of oxygen, a build up of carbon dioxide and the demands of stretch receptors around the lungs. These work together to sense each intake of breath and tell the brain when another is due. The secret of not breathing is to blunt the impact of the stretch receptors. One way of doing this is to take long slow breaths through tightly pursed lips - like you do when you catch your child doing something they shouldn't. In laboratory tests Tanya Streeter was connected to a machine which measured blood oxygen levels. Most people have around 98. Anything below 80 is considered dangerous. After five and a half minutes Tanya's went much lower to below 50, which was off the machine's scale and a level considered incompatible with human life. Bet she doesn't train in front of a mirror.

HOW IT STARTED
In the late summer of 1997 Tanya was living in Grand Cayman with her husband of (then) 2 years, Paul Streeter. She was working as Social Secretary & Office Manager to His Excellency The Governor of The Cayman Islands, and Paul was running a local construction company. Friends of theirs were keen spearfishermen and on Saturdays Tanya would join them on their hunts. At the time she wasnt spearfishing herself, but would assist by helping spot fish and retrieve the catch. They guys commented that she was 'pretty good for a girl' and invited her one Saturday to join them at a half day freediving clinic taught by then well-known freediver Pipin Ferreras.

After a surprise dive to 100ft (30m) after just a short while in the water, Tanya returned home thinking little of her morning's performance. Only when Ferreras called from Miami later in the evening did she give it another thought. He had heard of Tanyas dual USAUK citizenship and was calling to see if he could persuade her to train to break the American Constant Weight record. The record had been set earlier in the summer by an athlete he had trained who, just days before the record attempt, fired him. Tanya laughed aloud when he told her she would need to dive to 175ft53m to claim the record, almost double the depth she had dived to just that morning. She hung up the phone thinking he must be mad!

It took Tanya more than a month to commit to the record attempt, but after 3 months of training she broke the record with ease. 3 years later, after setting her 5th and 6th World Records, Sports Illustrated magazine called her 'The World's Most Perfect Athlete.'

ENDORSEMENTSPROJECTSARTICLES
Tanya's career has taken a dramatic turn in the past 3 years. In addition to working on several high-profile freediving projects in 20045 (including breaking her 10th World Record in the '05 World Championships), she has also developed a career as a adventure and wildlife TV presenter. Her 6-part series for the BBC has been extremely well-received and even won a 'Best Presenter' award at the International Wildlife Film Festival in Montana, USA. She was nominated with David Attenborough, but her underwater performance with marine iguanas, sea lions and penguins in Galapagos won over the voters. In 2006, for the same series, Tanya underwent 'Shark Therapy' to overcome her fear of the animals, and at the end of the film she transported viewers on a nail-biting dive with massive tiger sharks. In the USA Tanya presentedhosted 'FreeDiver', Animal Planet's surprise 2 hour hit special of 2006.

Tanya has also presented 'On A Single Breath' for Rush TV, Channel 5Discovery Channels 'Extraordinary People', OLN Courage 25', National Geographic's 'The Force' & 'National Geographic On Assignment', BBCs 'Frost on Sunday', 'Aqua', 'Dont Try This At Home', 'They think its all Over', 'Extreme Animals', The Learning Channel's 'Record Setters' and 'Extreme Machines', TBS Superstation's 'Ripley's Believe It Or Not', Sport Diver TV's 'Undersea Explorer', and France's RFO. She has appeared on The David Letterman Show, Conan O'Brien Show, Goodmorning America and Britain's Gabby & Terry and Richard & Judy shows.

In addition to frequent cover afforded her by most of the worlds leading Scuba Diving magazines and many national newspapers around the world, Tanya headlined US Vogue's feature on extreme women 'Risky Business' in April 1999 with stunning photographs by acclaimed celebrity photographer Herb Ritts and more recently in UK Vogue. She has also recently appeared in such publications as Sports Illustrated, Men's Journal, Esquire, Men's Health, Playboy, Marie Claire, Penthouse, Jane, Health & Fitness, Outside magazine, National Geographic Adventure magazine and many more. These high-profile interviews join a multitude of publications, on-line included, and literally hundreds of national and regional newspapers (including USA Today, Miami Herald, The Times, The Observer, The Daily Mail, The Telegraph, The Independent, The Mirror. Most impressive perhaps is her entry in the 2000 & 2005 Guinness Book of World Records together with photographs. In addition Tanya frequently writes of her adventures for on-line and print magazines.

Tanya was inducted into the Women Diver's Hall of Fame in March 2000 and has an annual invitation to attend The Women's Sports Foundations Annual awards ceremony in New York as one of the worlds top 80 female athletes for 2003. Tanya has recently been honored by her hometown by The Senate of State of Texas who passed resolution 129 in congratulating Tanya on her achievements, safety record and endeavors in promoting her sport.

In her quest to change the global misperception of her sport, Tanya brings something different to this typically male (and somewhat ego)-dominated sport. She has subjected herself to clinical studies of her physiology before, during and after dives in an effort to promote a better understanding, and the consequent improvement of safety, of freediving. She also hopes that by better understanding the capabilities of freedivers, medicine may be able to advance the treatment of patients suffering from cardio-pulmonary disease.

Tanya has a passion for everything in the ocean, and in addition to raising the profile of her sport, she strives to globally promote good ocean ethic. She is a spokesperson for The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, The Coral Reef Alliance, Bite-Back (shark protection), WSPA (World Society for the Protection of Animals) and Patron to the Scuba Trust (disabled diver charity).

WORLD RECORDS, etc.

July 21st 2003 Providenciales, Turks & Caicos Islands
ABSOLUTE World Record - Variable Weight to 122m400 feet in 3 mins 38 secs
(beat the mens record by 6 feet and the women's by 88 feet) Current world record

July 22nd 2003 Providenciales, Turks & Caicos Islands
ABSOLUTE World Record - Constant Weight without fins 35m115feet
(first person to set an official World Record in this discipline)

August 17th 2002 Providenciales, Turks & Caicos Islands
ABSOLUTE World Record - No Limits to 525ft160m in 3 mins 26 seconds.
(Beat mens previous World Record of 505ft154m becoming the first human to go so deep.) Current world record

May 11th 2001 Guadeloupe, French West Indies.
WORLD Record - Salt Water Constant Ballast to 230ft70m in 2 mins 36 seconds.
(Beat her own previous World Record of 220ft67m)

May 6th 2001 Guadeloupe, French West Indies.
WORLD Record - Salt Water Free Immersion to 230ft70m in 2 mins 28 seconds.
(Beat previous World record of 197ft60m)

December 4th 1999 Florida, USA.
ABSOLUTE World Record - Fresh Water Free Immersion to 180 feet55m in 2 mins 48 seconds.
(Beat previous men's world record of 170ft52m.)

November 29th, 1998 Florida, USA.
ABSOLUTE World Record - Fresh Water Constant Weight to 185 feet57m in 2 mins 10 seconds.
(Beat previous mens world record of 175ft53m. First time in history that a woman has taken an ABSOLUTE World Record.)

September 19th 1998 Sardinia, Italy.
WORLD Record - Salt Water Constant Ballast to 220 feet67m in 2 mins 48 seconds.
(Beat previous World record of 213ft65m)

May 9th 1998 Grand Cayman.
WORLD Record - No Limits to 370 feet113m in 2 mins 32 seconds.
(Beat previous World record of 360ft110m)

January 16th 1998 Grand Cayman.
ABSOLUTE USA Record - Salt Water Constant Ballast to 175 feet53m in 1 min 48 seconds.
(Beat previous Absolute USA record of 165ft50m)

October 2002 Kona, Hawaii.
Member of USA Womens team which won the Gold Medal at the Pacific Freediving World Cup.

October 2001 Ibiza, Spain.
DEEPEST dive ever by a woman in competition to 60m197ft at the 3rd AIDA World Freediving Championship. (Earned No.1 Ranking in the World in Constant Weight discipline.)