Megan Lyons who managed to break her own national record with an 80m plunge at the AIDA Asian Freediving Cup in the Philippines recently. Photo: @andac.kazar
As a freediver, Megan Lyons has reached unimaginable depths, shattering records that once might have seemed impossible.
The 33-year-old from Dublin managed to break her own national record with an 80 metre plunge at the AIDA Asian Freediving Cup in Panglao, Philippines in recent weeks. She had previously set a precedent with a 61m dive at the AIDA Freediving World Championships in September 2025, followed by a 71m dive in July 2026.
Now, Megan has her sights set on breaking the men’s record too as she trains for the World Apnea 2026 Depth Championships which take place this year from September 27 to October 10 in Limassol, Cyprus.
“I broke my own national record twice making me the deepest freediver in Ireland,” she told the Irish Examiner.
“My plan for the year is to beat the men's record. I’m only 2m off at the moment. I attempted to do it in Cyprus and also tried it in the Philippines a few weeks ago, but it was on the last day of the competition and I was very tired.
"I didn't quite make it that time either, but I'm hoping now to beat the men's record in Cyprus at the World Championships in September. The men's record is 81 so this year I want to beat that and get to at least 82. It’s something I really would like to work towards. I want to be the deepest freediver in Ireland as opposed to the deepest female freediver.”
Megan has always been attracted to the water.
“I think I was always a water baby. My dad is from Mayo and we were lucky enough to have a house down there where we could spend our summers. I’d be throwing myself off cliffs and piers. Even today my dad tells me a story about how he would throw a coin into the swimming pool on holidays for me to dive in to find.
"I loved the water but I probably lost my connection to the ocean when I was 21 and moved to London to take the corporate ladder route. Ironically, it was marine insurance and then more broad pricing as well.
"It wasn't until I quit my corporate job and I got diagnosed with ADHD at the end of 2022 that I pressed the big red button on my life and let everything implode. I decided to go travelling and came across a freediving course in Thailand.”
The Dublin native got off to a shaky start.
“I hated the first course because there was so much science around breathing.
It turns out that when you hold your breath and you feel like you need to breathe, this is nothing to do with your oxygen levels. It’s actually driven by the CO2 rising.
"I didn’t know that at the time so I’d dive only two or three metres before feeling like I needed to breathe. I’d come up in a panic and the instructor wasn’t very nice so it ended up being a terrible experience.
