At the AIDA Individual World Championship of Freediving in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, Campbell took the women's top spot with a dive to 88m in the Constant Weight category, where the freediver fins down and back up the dive line.
The men's Constant Weight winner was Austrian Herbert Nitsch. His impressive dive to 112m extended his own world record, by a metre.
Nitsch also took men's gold with a 77m dive in the competition's other category, Constant Weight Without Fins, where competitors use a swimming stroke to descend and ascend the line.
The women's Without Fins winner was Czech Jarmila Slovencikova, with a dive to 50m. Sara Campbell failed to score after being forced to employ outside assistance within metres of the surface, while attempting to extend her 56m world record to 60m.
Ironically, Campbell's triumph in Constant Weight came with a cautious approach. She settled on the depth of 88m - 2m shallower than her world record mark - despite the stated intention of her key rival, Russian Natalia Molchanova, to extend the world record to 95m.
Campbell said she had anticipated that the Russian former record holder would be tempted to bite off more than she could chew in order to snatch back the world record from the upstart British newcomer. So it proved, Molchanova failing to complete her dive within the rules.
Nitsch, who this year pushed the sport's No Limits sled-diving world record to a mind-boggling 214m, was a star speaker at last month's DIVE 2007 exhibition. He was the only presenter to receive a standing ovation at the start of his session, before he'd even opened his mouth!
Related links
Competition website
AIDA website
Campbell's three world record dives
Nitsch's No Limits record dive
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