Shark Freediving

The final leg of the 2009 Individual World Championships in Dean’s Blue Hole, Long Island, Bahamas was an interesting mix of daring and conservatism. In both the men’s and particularly women’s categories, there were clear and easy contenders for gold and silver, but extremely stiff competition for bronze and the next ranking positions, with some National Record announcements meaning that divers could well now be pushing their limits and taking big risks for the chance of a medal and glory.

The big surprise of the day, for me at least, was Natalia’s announcement. I had been expecting at least 102m from her, but I guess, either having learned from her last WC when she and I went head to head and I came out on top because she blacked out, or due to a lack of opportunity for deep diving since September, or maybe she never intended to take her extend her depths beyond her current 101m, she made a surprisingly shallow announcement of 97m. I wish I knew what lay behind that choice of depth – was it coincidence that it was just 1m deeper than my World Record? or is that her comfort depth?

Anyway, the journey to my decision to do 92m was a pretty tough one. We all know that in order to dive well, we must dive our dive, irrespective of what our contenders may or may not announce. So knowing that the next deepest diver was in the mid-70s, I knew I had a very generous bandwidth within which to announce and that even an 80m dive would give me Silver. However, it being the Worlds, I felt that I should be diving deeper than my Gold last time (88m) and that for respectability’s sake should do something 90+. But 90-what? That was the question. Having discussed it with Herbert over dinner one evening, he suggested 90 on the nose. But Christian, my flatmate said I should do what I’d already done twice, and fairly easily in training – 92m. There was also an option to announce 97m for a National Record, 100m for the personal satisfaction of finally doing it clean in competition, or even 102m to attempt a World Record. Ultimately I listened… not to the people around me but to my gut instinct. Anyway beyond 92m made me feel uncomfortable – what I most certainly didn’t want to do was come away with nothing – no medal, no ranking, just a big fat red card and zero points would not be good. I had felt very calm after talking about 90m with Herbert but on the day of announcement decided that 92m was my number – after all it’s the depth of ‘my’ Blue Hole in Dahab!

With a line-up of just six women, again all six women were shallower than even the shallowest man! This really needs to change. Olga Suryakova (I love her name – Surya in Sanskrit means ’sun’) was first up and unfortunately made her first ‘off’ dive of the comp – an early turn five metres short of her announced depth. Klara Hansson also lost six points for turning equally early on her 74m dive, taking her out of the running for medals should any of the last three have messed up, but no less smiles from her nonetheless (maybe something to do with having got to judge – and afterwards hug in congratulations – Christian Ernest on his 50m Unashamed World Record a few days earlier – click here to see the full dive!!!).

Misuzu Hiria was the first of two National Records in the women’s comp that morning with what looked like a very comfortable 72m dive, which she was extremely happy about. Things are looking promising for the Japanese women for the Team Worlds on home turf next year! Jarmila Slovencikova brought in the second National Record of the day with her 76m dive for the Czech Republic. And then from 76m to 92m for my dive which went like a dream. I don’t know if having the title ‘World Championships’ in a competition does something to me mentally or physically, but both times I have dived to within metres of my personal best, and both times I have smashed not just a few, but up to 30 seconds off my dive time over the same depth. And not only that, but both times I have had a clear feeling on the surface of it having been one of the easiest dives of my life. Hmmm, not sure what to make of that, but it certainly feels extremely good. Although I don’t think I’d be human if I didn’t have a tiny nagging voice in the back of my head wondering what I could have done with a bolder announcement or an open line…. Natalia was up last and no surprises that she made it too – although the results are slightly incorrect in that she surfaced without a tag, ie 96 points, having tried to grab the light at the bottom and claiming on the surface that there were no tags. On pulling up the bottom plate before the men’s comp the judges found no less than seven tags down there. Narked?? Perhaps just a wee bit!!! Well done Natalia – a very well deserved Gold medal (and silver goes better with my earrings anyway

So to the men. Again, with Martin Stepanek not even competing, Herbert was out there in comfortably contending for Gold, with 114m. Alexey was pushing for Silver with 111m and then, jostling for Bronze we had two divers announcing 110m; Will Trubridge and Carlos Coste. And on their heels hoping to pick up bronze in the case of penalties or black-out was Guillaume Nery with 109. Johan Dahlstrom was the surprise – and slightly reluctant – entrant for the men’s final, announcing 101m for a National Record which, if successful would make him the 12th man to 100m and would take Per Westin’s National Record set only days earlier.

So, Johan – did he have it in him? With some fairly big failures at the 100m earlier in the year, and a lost tag on this 100m dive in the heats, 101m was a big ask for him. I felt so tense for him praying that he’d make it, but to be honest, not sure he would. He made a fast dive, over 10 seconds ahead of his given time and, with some pretty powerful hook breathing on the surface – and a tag in his hand – he made a clean surface protocol and received huge applause and congratulations on his white card – nice dive, mate!

Guillaume made 109, look easy, a few metres within his PB and former World Record of 113m. Carlos was next with 110m and relatively slow dive of four minutes five seconds for a white card and National Record for Venezuela. Will Trubridge also pulled off a National Record for New Zealand doing the same depth over half a minute faster in 3:32. Should all other men make their dives, these two were sharing Bronze.

The last two divers were Alexey who had scared everyone with his blackouts in training, and Herbert who prefers to blackout before rather than after his dives!!! Alexey did it – 111m for a Russian National Record, lots more shouts of ‘deshie, deshie’ (not ‘reshie, reshie’, as I incorrectly wrote in my earlier blog!) and potentially Silver and Herbert made his massive 114m dive look easy for Gold.

However, directly after Alexey’s dive there was kerfuffle on the surface and the beach. Despite his white card, it was rumoured that he had in fact messed up the surface protocol by signing his OK sign AFTER saying that he was OK. This was further confused by a very clearn OK sign made after his verbal ‘I’m OK’. There was conferring on the beach; Guillaume, despite the prospect of this putting him in third place for Bronze, did not want to protest. However, Kerian on behalf of Will T, and Carlos both decided that it was clearly a breach of the protocol and decided to protest. On the strength of Will and Carlos’ opinions, Guillaume joined the protest and so the judges, rather than having just ten pots of pee to look forward to that afternoon, had as tense a protest you can image ahead of them. The contention lay in Alexey’s OK sign; had he done a fairly unclear one with his left hand, which only Marcelo had seen as he took off his mask, or had he just been taking off his mask and then said I’m OK, followed by a second, very clear OK sign to the other judges, ie incorrect sequence of SP? Jana, as coach and girlfriend, said that he ‘throws away’ his OK sign, doing it in the same movement as taking off his mask, thereby leaving him open to doubt – a lesson to every freediver really. The judges studied the video and conferred with each other and each of the divers involved in the protest. Just minutes before the decision was made, Carlos, Will and Guillaume approached Alexey to apologise for putting him in this position and reassuring him that the protest was in no way personal – simply a matter of competition and diving within and according to the rules. It was a great gesture but highlighted something work thinking about; when you look at it that way, every diver has the obligation to protest another when there is suspicion of the rules not being adhered to – we each have the responsibility for upholding the quality and integrity of this sport for each other and for its future growth.

In the end, the protest was awarded to Alexey, securing Silver for him and joint Bronze for Carlos and Will. Guillaume was the only one to not gain anything from the protest, but he was pretty relaxed about it, not having wanted to protest in the first place.

So, on to the party and celebrations and gossip. As for gossip, there was none – honest! Either that or I’ve been sworn to secrecy. Either way, I ain’t telling

Sebastian was finally able to relax, and relax he did. Now in Sebastian’s world, that doesn’t mean getting drunk, it just means switching off the brain, which, as he readily confessed, he did the moment the final white card was shown. This meant that we had a medals ceremony – without medals! He’d left them in the apartment, bless him! Thank goodness for the locals and their very touching gifts, which we were able to use in place of medals – particularly the shell necklaces which we all very proudly accepted and wore for the course of the evening. Showing his unstinting commitment to the event though, Seb made a 90 minute round trip back to the apartments to get the medals and after dinner once more took to the stage for the medal ceremony – only to leave a few seconds later again as he realised he’d left them in the car! This man REALLY needs and deserves a break!!! DeeDee took to the stage with one of her hilarious stand-up routines which kept us entertained in the interim and then we finally got on with the serious business of decking out the top six (well five given that Natalia got two Golds) athletes with their finery! Flags and photos, smiles and speeches – it was a lot of fun. What a pity I’d lost my camera and am unable to download my memories for you to see!

And how can anyone expect a closing ceremony at a freediving Worlds not to end in the water, if water is available. The Island Breezes restaurant, which was hosting the party, has a pool and it was just far too tempting for people not to either jump, or allow themselves to be thrown in. I don’t think there was a single dry person by the end of the evening. And I think the next morning some nasty bruises on toes and shins to show for it too! Will Trubridge was the other person in most need of a break after his year-long quest to make the event happen and to dive so well himself. His way of relaxing – to snog his wife almost non-stop throughout the evening! They make a gorgeous – and on that evening rather drunk – couple!!!! Thanks to both of you for making everything not only happen, but happen so damn well!

The judges handed out a few customary ‘ special’ prizes! I was again given my Princess medal – this time a jigsaw – with 100 pieces, one for every metre on my next comp dive!!! I can’t remember what everyone else got, but some amusing gifts that showed buckets of humour and thought. I think we have Grant in particular to thank for these! Cheers, Granty!

For some the competition finished early with planes home even before the party. Igor Liberti, official photographer (who with HUGE misfortune flooded his camera half way though but enjoyed the generosity of some of the other professional or proficient amateur photographers there, by sharing their cameras – until Aurora, from the French media team, flooded hers too. What bad luck) was one of the first, along with Bronze medalist, Jarmila (your medal’s in the post, honey!). Others didn’t want to stop partying though and I gather the festivities continued well into the early hours, if not the next day down in Turtle Cove!

My final day was spent on my first spearfishing experience, but I think due to a combination of a big dive the day before, not much sleep and a few too many Rum Punches and some crappy bi-fins which are three sizes too big (why, oh WHY does no bi-fin company make anything smaller than a 38????) I opted for a combination of snorkelling, sunbathing and driving the boat instead. I did see my first free-swimming sharks in the wild – a small grey reef shark and a nurse shark. Stunning, stunning creatures of which I felt absolutely no fear. Now that could have had something to do with the five spear-wielding men surrounding me, but I think it was more to do with the sharks’ calmness and majesty in the water. They were simply cruising the bottom and not the least bit interested in me. So misunderstood and I look forward to meeting them again.

Then it was time to pack, say final goodbyes (in particular to Galleria, the dog belonging to our landlords, who had adopted me over the final days and had followed me, literally, everywhere) and get on a tiny plane that even I had to bend over to walk around inside – I felt like we’d all eaten Alice in Wonderland cookies and had grown too big for the plane! On the way home I spent two wonderful days with my friends and yoga teachers, Mahan Rishi and his wife Nirbhe Kaur in New Jersey. There had been snow a few days earlier and some was still laying on the ground. It was a 100 percent contrast to the soft white sand, blue waters and balmy temperatures of Lond Island.

Last time I had felt lost and claustrophobic on Long Island. This time I didn’t want to leave. But at least this time, as I got on to my tiny Through the Looking-Glass plane, I know I’ll be back

Yesterday some of the deepest men and women in the world (and I’m sure we’re not talking purely about diving here tested their mettle in the most technically and physically demanding deep constant weight discipline – No Fins. With so many black-outs in the women’s heats, every single woman with a white card had got through, but this didn’t mean that the divers were now complacent and resting on their laurels. It meant we had an amazing four National and one World Record announced, the only one not, being Olga Suryakova, who has the unfortunate coincidence of having the same nationality as Nathalia Molchanova, who’d announced a World Record. Given the number of ‘casualties’ in the heats, and the obviously ambitious depths all divers had announced, I think everyone, particularly the safety divers were expecting a lively time again. However, we got it totally wrong – six white cards out of six, giving Natalia a new World Record of 62m. Any woman hoping to challenge her had better hurry up before she gets too deep!

But having said that, it’s an awesome dive (having had my first ever black-out attempting 60m CNF, I most certainly know!) but looking at the start list which was a COMBINED mens and womens finals, one could have been forgiven for thinking it was two separate competitions – even Natalia was shallower, by some thirteen metres, than the shallowest qualifying male! Come on girls – let’s try and catch up with those men!

But credit where credit is most certainly due; the records and medals: Brigitte Banegas of France set a new National Record of 50m – apparently she’s only been training for a few months and it’s only equalisation that’s stopping her going deeper. She looks fit and very strong, so hopefully we’ll see much deeper dives from her in the future. Next was Junko Kitahama of Japan setting a nice Record for her country with 52m, and already we’re into the medals; Bronze went to Jana Strain, with a Canadian, Pan-American AND Continental Record, I believe, of 54m to boot – oh and she also had a birthday yesterday! A very, very happy one for her, I’m sure. Silver went to Niki Roderick of New Zealand with a National Record of 55m – she is here and being trained by her boyfriend, that little-known freediver, Martin Stepanek. Apparently she’s done very close to that depth in competition a few times so it was a comfortable announcement for her first World Championships – hopefully with more experience and confidence under her (very low weight) belt, she’ll be giving Natalia something to reckon with in the future. And last but so very not least was Natalia herself, with a stonkingly easy dive of 62m, which apparently she hadn’t yet reached in training. Gold and a new World Record to Russia!!!

And dropping the line another 13 metres, we are into the men’s finals. The French ‘team’ were up first with Christian Maldame, Morgan Bourc’his and Guillaume Nery announcing – and achieving – 75m, 76m and 78m respectively! Not only great diving but what appears like great support and cameraderie from the team, all working together for the best results. Guillaume, who set the World Record of 113m in Constant Weight last year, decided to focus on No Fins after the intensity of that experience, and found that not only did he love and excel in diving Unassisted, but that it also made his Constant Weight dives feel easier (well, erm, duh, as he himself said, ‘it’s like covering the same distance running or riding a bike!’). So William T was getting nervous as Guillaume arrived in Deans Blue Hole, but it wasn’t to be. He was one of many divers who found the conditions here strangely difficult to deal with – equalisation and mouthfill problems, unexpected black-outs, that kind of thing – and so in the end had to be content with a National Record. Which, it must be noted he stole not from himself, but from Morgan with his 76m dive, just a few minutes earlier!

Alexey was back – and so were his black-outs. An ambitious National Record attempt of 83m ended on the surface with a tiny black-out (again screams of ‘reshie, reshie’ – or something like that – from the Russian contigent, which we now ALL know means ‘breathe, breathe’!). Very sad, but he was fine and still has the Constant Weight finals to look forward to.

Will Winram, the freediver-cum-comedian from Canada, who last year dived for France, but this year has switched back to Canada, announced 86m, which everyone knows is well within his capacity but for some reason, the last two years, Will has been haunted by demons at depth, developing a habit of turning early. No longer so! Steaming to the plate, where he claims he was ’so f***ing narked’ that he grabbed the light instead of the tag – twice – he then had an easy, happy, totally off his head ride to the surface where, still apparently narked, he performed a faultless surface protocol and was the second Canadian of the day to do the whole National, Pan-American, Continental record thing!

Not so for Herbert – a massive 89m dive from the man who held the World Record in this, his least favourite of disciplines, in fact probably least favourite thing in the world. But with his breathhold and his nerves of steel – and even with his most HORRIBLE technique – if anyone can, Herbert can! I was coaching him and all was looking good. As he approached the surface he looked a little weak, but then again it’s Herbert’s trademark to ascend as slowly as possible in the final few metres to avoid DCS. On the surface he removed his facial equipment, gave the OK sign and then stopped. I can’t tell you what was racing through my mind…. ‘he’s OK, he’s just getting his breath’, ‘ no, he’s on the edge and doesn’t know what he’s doing’, ‘no, it’s OK, he has plenty of ti….’. ‘SAY ‘I’M OK’, Herbert!,’ I yelled at him. My second guess he been right – he was absolutely on the edge. Not so far that he didn’t hear or couldn’t react to my yells, but enough that when he did react he forgot that he’d given the OK sign – and gave it again and was thereby DQed! Man, I was gutted. Grant was gutted, Everyone was gutted. It’s rare to see Herbert mess up like that (he much prefers packing black-outs!) and I’ve been running it through my head – could I have prevented it in any way? I’m not sure… One positive thing – for Herbert anyway, is that he’s ‘never going to do this f***ing discipline EVER again.’ I guess that might make Will T happy too

Talking of which – yes, he did it. Rumours are that he’s done MUCH deeper in training, so we suspect it was an easy dive. But Will’s a secretive man so only he and his closest buddies, and I presume, wife, Brittany, will know. But respect to the man! He did a 90m WR CNF dive, pulled the whole competition together, made it happen, brought 50-something athletes, plus judges, safety team, videographers and more to the Blue Hole here in the Bahamas. And no doubt will be cranking out World Records approaching the 100’s in the near future.

So, mens final tally was Gold to Trubridge, Silver to Winram and a surprising Bronze to Nery! I watched most of it from the beach, reporting the news on camera, got my first sunburn and had a thoroughly enjoyable day.

Resting today and up tomorrow for the Constant Weight finals. What can I say – I’m HUGELY surprised by Natalia’s announcement – has she ever NOT announced a World Record??? This could be a first!!! I decided to play it safe and dive to the bottom of ‘my’ Blue Hole in Dahab which I’ve done often in training. I feel confident that, with the changes I’ve made recently that I could do 100m and probably challenge Natalia for + 100m dives in the not too distant future, but this competition is about medals more than records and, presuming she would be diving deeper than my comfort zone, I chose a ’safe’ dive (blimey, I’d better not black-out now, after having said that!!! It’s unlikely that she’ll falter on a 97m dive, unless she’s not feeling 100%…. so, all going well, I’m looking at Silver tomorrow. Jarmila, Klara and Misuzu are fighting it out for Bronze with 74, 73 and 72m announcements respectively. But of course things can change at any moment and we could see Olga Suryakova, who has stealthily and consistently worked her way into both finals against all odds, make a medal with a 63m dive!

As for the men, well, some BIG announcements. No surprises there, they all did +100m just to qualify. Johan Dahlstrom is up first with 101m – he so narrowly missed 100m in points in the heats by losing the tag on the way up. He was also pretty narked, or on the edge at the surface, doing the full surface protocol twice, so it’s anyone’s guess… Then the platform workers have to drop the line a full eight metres for the next diver as we hit the top five, all of whom have each held World Records in at least one of the six competitive disciplines;  Guillaume will dive 109m, four metres off his former World Record, Carlos 110m (on a competition PB of 105m!!!), Will T has also announced 110m, Alexey is aiming for a massive 111m (all or bust, I suspect!), and Herbert, as usual, brings up the rear (phnarrr, phnarrr) with his penultimate World Record depth of 114m, which he did easily here in April this year.

It’s be a thrilling, literally breath-taking day tomorrow!

So, Constant Weight, the deep one, has started and finished. The women’s field is an interesting one. With former world record holders and contenders (I’m thinking of Annelie Pompe currently attempting a double 8000m ASCENT in the Himalayas – she’s going up now, not down!, Mandy-Rae Cruickshank who played a crucial part in the expose of the dolphin slaughter in Taiji, Japan, in The Cove, Linda Paganelli who prefers to organise and safety these days, and apologies to any other deep females I have left off this list!) either no longer competing, or simply not here, the opportunities for divers in the 60s and 70s to get into the finals and come home with a medal are pretty exciting this year. Of course personal bests (PBs) remain secret for many of the divers, but as far as I know, only Jarmila and Kathryn have dived below 70 in CWT recently, leaving a yawning gap of at least 20m before the next deepest competitors reach my former world record of 96m and of course Natalia’s dive of 101m!

So, how did it go? Kathryn, after her black-out and squeeze in No Fins announced what she said was a conservative 66m (so how deep has she been recently then? I suspect she’s made some impressive advances – hurrah!) but her suspicion that the black-out was caused by the on-set of illness was correct as she turned up to the event committee the night before, barely able to speak and sounding very mucousy. God, I feel so bad for her, she’s had such a rubbish comp after such a long time of preparation and dedication to her training – she really deserved to go home with not just one medal, but two! I admire her positive attitude though, and she’s turning up and cheering everyone on. So, she was a no-starter, or DNS as we call them (did not start).

I think the other major casualty of the day – no, it wasn’t a black-out – none of those in CWT after a hectic No Fins day! – was Junko. As seventh deepest woman, she stood a good chance of getting through to the finals if one of the deeper athletes should falter, as did happen. Unfortunately she was DQed, according to the results list for her surface protocol, but I heard that she got water in her mouth, or mask, or both and so am not sure exactly what happened, but it’s certainly sad to see her go out – you can’t beat a Junko smile after a successful dive!!!

The only other athlete to go out was Jana Strain. I stated in my report on the CNF dives that we saw a ‘predictably strong performance’ from her there, and I’d been expecting the same in Constant. Little did I know that she’d been struggling with equalisation and such was the case yesterday. Jana went out with an early turn which put her out of the top six.

So, happy stories of the day. It was the first time I’d seen either of the other Japanese women dive, and in particular Misuzu Hirai gave a spectacularly strong performance of 66m, looking as fresh and strong as if she’d just done 20m – so she’s clearly looking to take the National Record from Tomoko and go much deeper in the finals. Jarmila was through easily also, which made me happy (after our dives we went and swam with the massive tarpon – fish which live just beneath the rim of the Blue Hole at around 20m – her theory is that they hide behind the sand dripping gently off the lip, believing they can watch the competition in peace and that we can’t see them. Despite their size, they’re harmless, gentle giants, some easily as big as me!!!), also Klara Hansson – hurrah – made a clean dive after her sad exit from No Fins, and the three deeper casualties meant that Olga Suryakova, who I’m sure didn’t expect to find herself in either final, is now in both! Oh, and I barely need to mention that Natalia made a clean and easy dive, as did I

The men’s competition promised excitement pure – with at least six men with ranked dives over 100m, that meant to qualify every man HAD to announce over 100m. So the start list had some BIG numbers in it – Johan Dahlstrom of Sweden attempting 100m again – his strategy, just to do 100m whether it got him through or not, and in fact, he said he’d prefer not to get through so that he could start training No Fins and do some spearfishing with the sweet knowledge of being the 11th man to join the 100 Club). Ryuzo announced 101m, there were three diving to 102m – Guillaume Nery, Alexey Molchanov and Will Trubridge, Carlos Coste announced 1m short of his PB of 105m and Herbert, of course, was last up with 105m.

However, back to the early stages of the comp. There were six early turns, a surprisingly high number, I feel, and also one tactical ‘no tag’ yellow card from William Trubridge who knew that on the depth gauge and one penalty point, he was through anyway. Johan also came up with no tag despite having grabbed it and it was felt that he would be given the dive on the judges viewing the camera and finally claim his 100m. However I just learned something new… it has been verified that no white tag equals minus one point, no matter what is on the bottom camera, so he remains with 99 points, but 100m on his gauge (although if it’s a D4 it will just give him a flatline – which I have to say, from experience, is also quite a satisfying feeling – to know that you can dive deeper than the computer can measure

But I keep jumping ahead…. Four National Records for the men; first for Spain with a 70m dive for Alfredo Roen, meaning the Spanish have completed their comp and were looking very happy and relaxed on the beach and I kept hearing the words ‘fiesta’ and ‘cerveza’ so we may not be seeing quite so much of them in the water from now on! Next was Rob King, who I was coaching. Despite announcing 84m, a dive which normally falls into the second half of the start list, he was in the first group due to all the massive announcements and the early start had shaken him slightly. Despite that, he did a beautiful dive, white card, and a National and joint Pan-American Record (shared with flatmate Will Winram) to boot. Unfortunately also a small squeeze, which he said felt like the biggest he’d had. But the comp is over for him so he can relax and enjoy being a spectator! Next National Record was from Jure Daic from Slovenia and again he made his dive look like there’s a lot more to come from him – this time a mere 90m! Finally was Jakob Hanson (or as I’ve just found out from studying the results list, his real name is Neils-Jakob – kind of makes coaching him a bit of a mouthfull – ‘BREATHE NEILS-JAKOB, BREATHE NIELS-JAKOB’) with a perfect 92m. Congrats to all of them.

I guess I can’t get away without mentioning the big downer of the comp – Patrick Poggi of France did the fastest 90m anyone had ever seen (according to Sebastian and his running commentary!), but unfortunately he burned up all of his energy too early on and it was lights out for him around 10m. He was brought to the surface quickly, safely and efficiently but remained in his dreamland for quite a while, breathing shallowly on the platform and clearly not focusing on anything around him. However, as soon as he received oxygen, he was back and seemed to enjoy the rest of the day, although I’m sure, seeing as he doesn’t do No Fins, he was disappointed to leave the competition with no official result.

There were a few other squeezes – Shun Oshima from Japan had quite a chunky one but still managed a good 85m dive, which a slightly wonky surface protocol which just managed to get him through. Sadly Per Westin hadn’t managed to get over his equalisation challenges – having done great 92m dives with me in Dahab before flying out here, he found himself frustratingly stuck in the mid-80s in Deans Blue Hole and didn’t manage to break the spell for the competition either – what a shame!

Other than that, the main excitement of the final round with the 100m men, turned out to be a little bit predictable, as most of them have dived considerably deeper than their announcements. Apart from Ryuzo, who with a film crew in tow, bows out of the comp, all men gave shiningly brilliant and easy performances. Oh, to have their legs!!! Alexey was over his black-outs and near misses at the surface but I think the highpoint for me, in terms of real happiness and joy, was seeing Gaby’s (judge and over 10 year girlfriend of Carlos) relief and excitement for him as he got his white card. It was a truly warm, fuzzy moment.

Tonight we’re all off out to celebrate the end of the heats. In terms of the finals, the rankings are as follows:

Well, we’ve completed the heats of No Fins; women dived yesterday, men today. and I have to say, if the first two days are anything to go by, we’ll see some impressive dives and some big surprises too!

So, first off, the women. With 13 women starting, it was a small comp, but nonetheless exciting for that. Unfortunately Heidi Heidenreich of Germany started an early trend with a small black-out on her 35m dive – but with two years out of the water, it was an ambitious target. With no plans to do CWT, she’s now looking forward to a lovely holiday on Long Island with her boyfriend, Mark

Out of the 13 divers, only six got white cards, including the starter!!! Black-outs came from some of the most promising divers; Kathryn McPhee, who unfortunately also suffered a squeeze; and Jarmila Solvencikova who joined Kathryn on the squeezing, although for her it was her first – ‘it doesn’t feel good here,’ she told me, pointing to her chest. Just two years ago in Sharm Jarmila took Gold with a 50m dive and think then I think she’s felt the pressure to perform. She attempted a World Record in the discipline last year, but blacked out just a metre or so from the surface on a 62m dive and since then has struggled with the expectation and pressure of being the one to challenge Molchanova. Oh how I know how that feels!! You have my heart, Jarmila!

Klara Hansson suffered the fourth black-out of the day, which seemed to go on forever, but she recovered perfectly and was in great spirits again today, coaching Christian Ernest on his CNF dive, but more on that later.

Of course Natalia Molchanova did an easy 55m dive to qualify for the finals and will be joined by ALL other white card divers – certainly Junko of Japan who did the happiest National Record I think I have ever seen with 48m, Brigitte Banegas of France added a massive 11m on to her former National Record in CNF, and the shallowest diver to qualify is Olga Suryakova with a 40m dive. For sure she never expected to get through! Also through are NZ’s Niki Roderick who is coached by boyfriend, Martin Stepanek, and Jana Strain of Canada, who did a predictably strong performance of 46m. Safety certainly had their work cut out for them with all the black-outs and it was a good opportunity to really test the teamwork on the platform and in the water with some real stress situations.

Today the men were up – and down! It was a much busier field with 26 divers – and a massive 11 National Records. Sweden had a fabulous day, with all three divers setting National Records; first Anders Larsson with 63m, then Sebastian Naslund with an amazingly strong 65m and Christian Ernest was smiling EVEN more than usual with a perfect 66m for the Scandinavian record too. But there was real national bonding going on and happiness from each diver for each other’s performance, even if they only managed to hold the record for a few minutes. The French – Morgan Bourchis, Christian Maldame and Guillaume Nery – demonstrated perfect training and team tactics (even though it’s not a team competition) – three dives to 73m, each executed with absolute ease and grace – they are certainly worth watching! Their tactics paid off – all three of them through to the finals!

Also through, with no big surprises, are Will T, Will W, Herbert and Alexey, although he nearly fluffed it by almost blacking out AFTER his surface protocol, although with Jana and Natalia screaming at him to breathe in their respective languages, I think any man would have been foolish not to listen!

Sad points of the men’s comp were Christian Moller, my flatmate and who I was coaching, and Kerian Hibbs. Christian made it to the surface and looked like he was going to make it – perhaps with a bit more hook breathing he would have held on, but it was almost a repeat performance of my black-out on 100m here in April earlier in the year; surface, breathe and then fall gently back into the water and the arms of the waiting safety divers. Man, I felt for him! Kerian was also a heartbreaking black-out – 72m should have been an easy one for him, a dive he’s done three times already in training. He was calm but confident and I was amazed and gutted to see him falter and try and grab for the line at around 3m from the surface, then exhale and have to be brought to the surface. It’s dives like these two, when the diver SHOULD make the performance, and has worked so hard, and placed their heart into every stroke of the dive, that make everyones’ heart sink and you wonder how, despite the smiles, the diver is really feeling.

Also worth mentioning are the Danish National Records – jointly held now by the two Mads – Becker Jorgenson and Isberg. They both hit 63m. What a pity Christian couldn’t have made it a threesome (you know what I mean!;-). Will Winram set a new Canadian record – hurrah, at last!! – as did Jure Daic of Slovenia, Rob King of USA, Antero Joki of Finland, Adel Abu Haliqa of UAE and Jason Weller-Barrett – an unlikely name for a Spaniard if ever I heard of one!

At the end of it all I think was the highlight of my day, when a lovely French doctor came up and said he would have to help me get undressed! REALLY?!!? Yes – unfortunately it was all in the name of science. Fred is a physiologist with the French team and he is doing ECG test on any willing athletes. So I got myself all wired up with electrodes all over my chest, cover the lot with stickers, and then put my wetsuit on over the lot. Finally a cute little backpack holding the computer to which everything was connected. Debbie (BEFZ videographer) was excited as she thought I looked like I had a scuba set on my back. Personally I think it looked more like a small rocket-launcher and was having all sorts of fantasies of how deep I might be able to go if it were true, and how much fun it would be rocketing back to the surface from 100+m! No such luck – I got a needle stuck in my finger – twice, before and after the dive to check my lactate levels and had to fin down to 60m and back. Still it was a nice training dive and lots of fun to work with him. Now I just have to have my teeny weeny lungs checked to find out how small they really are (last count a puny 3.7 litres!) and that’s it – a three month wait for the results.

Tomorrow is rest day before women’s heats in Constant Weight start on Monday. The games have started in terms of what to announce – how many women can dive below 70m? Hmmm, with Kathryn’s squeeze and what she thinks is a possible throat infection coming on which exaccerbated her black-out yesterday, it’s unclear whether she’ll be diving that deep now. Jana? Don’t think she’s been below 60m… Niki Roderick – no idea! Jarmila can go below 70m and I don’t even need to mention Natalia! So will 60m be enough or should I do 70m to be safe? Well, I have another 12 hours before I have to drop that piece of paper into the sealed announcement box so a little sleep and lots of second-guessing between now and then!

The weather today was perfect – clear, warm, great visibility in the water and the sun shone all day! The safety guys are great – really well organised and extremely good company in the water – a pleasure to dive with. I loved seeing Phil doing a reverse variable at the end of the day to bring the bottom plate up for the night – he free immersioned his way down and at 45 seconds, as agreed, the line was brought up – it looked so much fun as he popped through the surface of the water, as if he were jumping out of a giant birthday cake as a surprise!

Then home to chat with Christian and eat my first real food of the day as the sun set…. It’s really not too shabby, this lifestyle!

Freedive Dahab does it again. Blue Hole home to yet more records!!!

Dahab’s Blue Hole has seen its fair share of spectacular freediving and last week was no exception. Three athletes, from three countries came together to set new national records in Constant Weight and Free Immersion. The 26 year-old Kiwi, Dave Mullins arrived in Dahab at the end of May for a three week run-up to his very ambitious attempts at Ant William’s 82 meters Constant Weight. He was joined a week later by Pat Schnorf, from Switzerland, who was aiming to break the national records of 65 meters, established by himself in both Constant Weight and Free Immersion. They caught up with Dahab-resident Sara Campbell, who was hoping to add the Constant Weight and Free Immersion records to her No Fins to make it a triple.

The whole event was organized by Freedive Dahab, the coaching and training company run by former world record holder, Lotta Ericson, and her partner, national record holder, Linda Paganelli. They used their highly successful new counter ballast system, which had its debut at the April CWT/CNF competition recently. The system consists of a three-meter long steel pulley system with brakes, suspended beneath up to five freediving buoys, and through which the rope passes. It is a very simple system, which can be maneuvered easily, a benefit which came into its own, as Dave announced he would be attempting over 95 meters and would need to dive OUTSIDE the Blue Hole (he’d already hit his head on the coral on the bottom once during training!).

As can be expected during such events, not everything went to plan. Pat suffered from a strange pain in his ear and jaw and was finding equalizing difficult, and Dave succumbed to the infamous Dahab belly, as well as a head cold early on in training, which kept him out of the water for a few days, and even interrupted his record attempts on day two. Having had every stomach bug under the sun since arriving in Dahab over two years ago, Sara was thankfully spared any kind of illness, although the butterflies may have been responsible for a few last minute trips to the loo prior to the attempt dives!

The attempts started on Wednesday 6th June, with the following dives (see tables below for dive times):
Sara – 58m CWT
Pat – 70m CWT
Dave – 92m CWT
Sara – 58m FIM

Three successful attempts put everyone on a high, particularly Pat’s dive as he had been so stressed and each meter was a mental battle for him to keep going to his target 70 meters. It was great to see his smile as the white card was produced by Lotta. With a Free Immersion attempt still to go, however Sara faltered on her mouth fill and had to turn early at 55m. The team was ready to pack up and go home, but stubborn to the last, Sara asked for a few minutes to recover in order to try again. Against the advice of Lotta and Linda, veterans of competition and record attempts, Sara made a second attempt at 58 meters just 20 minutes later – and this time returned with the tag to complete a successful dive.

Day two, Thursday 7th June, Dave had unwisely taken Sara’s advice on the pasta dish the night before and was in bed with a dodgy tum, so Sara and Pat were braving the deep together. It was a day of clean dives and big smiles.
Sara – 62m FIM
Pat – 66m FIM

With his two new records behind him, Pat was back on form and announced he would be attempting 70 meters FIM the following day. Dave had recovered sufficiently to join the crew for dinner and Sara was suitably apologetic about keeping Dave from his 95-meter target that day! She was eternally grateful for the fact that the boys didn’t insist she go for a new British record in naked CNF as her punishment for injudicious dining!

Day three, Friday 8th June, Pat’s last day before flying back home to Switzerland. The whole gang was back together, feeling relaxed and confident, having bagged all the results they came to set, with simply ‘bonus’ records ahead of them. The dive order was switched for Pat’s last day as Sara had been taking too long on her warm-ups and apparently slowing the proceedings down. So Pat dived first, and scared us all slightly with a very long FIM to 70 meters – apparently he fell below the bottom plate and had some difficulty untangling his lanyard before turning – his dive profile showed a rather scary 17 seconds at the bottom! Sara did a clean 62 meter CWT dive, rounding off proceedings INSIDE the Blue Hole.

Finally, as Dave was going for his awesome 95 meter dive (video here), the team had to move the counter ballast to outside the Blue Hole for the final dive of the day. With a great team on board which included Seamus from Australia on camera in his rubber dinghy, and Rachel from the UK (whose mum dates Hannah Stacey’s dad!!!) who was here to train with boyfriend Ben who provided safety alongside Dane, Christian, it was a seamless operation with everyone pulling their weight to ensure optimal conditions and calm for Dave. He was typically relaxed on the surface, although he had problems with his nose clip, which didn’t seem to want to stay on. But unruffled, Dave did a fabulous 95 meter CWT dive, returning to much applause and admiration – whatever!

The third day was celebrated with a barbecue on the beach at the laguna, where everyone had to hold on to their chicken to save it from flying away in the wind that had also set some challenges for the team during the dives. Pat, who was flying home later that night, enjoyed a few glasses of Egypt’s finest vintage (!) and the crew stumbled home in the early hours for a good night’s sleep, looking forward to a day’s rest before the final attempts on Sunday.

Day 4, Sunday 10th June, was the perfect freediving day. Gone were the rather windy and wavy conditions from day three which made Seamus’s job as camera man in the rubber dinghy rather more exciting than it should have been, we were blessed with totally calm waters and no wind. It was decided therefore that both dives would take place outside the Blue Hole and the counter ballast system was brought directly to outside the Arch.

Dave dived first, looking incredibly relaxed – and as we found out later, possibly a little too relaxed – on his descent. His dive took an incredible 3 minutes 43 seconds and he reported being ‘amazingly narked’ at the bottom. He suspects this was due more to the slow dive time than the depths. Despite this, he still returned comfortably, if a little tired, to the surface to claim his glory as the fifth deepest man in the world, and a nice round number of 100 meters to take home with him. Sara’s final dive of 65 meters was also successful, rounding off a brilliant week for the UK, Switzerland and New Zealand. Now the world watches Dave with bated breath to see whether he has it in him to attempt the world record in CWT.

Thanks again Sara, for your coverage and personal story about this whole event. You can read the news article about this event here. Thanks to Seamus Murray for the use of his photo’s.

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function __RP_Callback_Helper(str, strCallbackEvent, splitSize, func){var event = null;if (strCallbackEvent){event = document.createEvent(\\\’Events\\\’);event.initEvent(strCallbackEvent, true, true);}if (str && str.length > 0){var splitList = str.split(\\\’|\\\’);var strCompare = str;if (splitList.length == splitSize)strCompare = splitList[splitSize-1];var pluginList = document.plugins;for (var count = 0; count = sSrc.length){if (strCompare.indexOf(sSrc) != -1){func(str, count, pluginList, splitList);break;}}}}if (strCallbackEvent)document.body.dispatchEvent(event);}function __RP_Coord_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Left = splitList[0];pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Top = splitList[1];pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Right = splitList[2];pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Bottom = splitList[3];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, \\\’rp-js-coord-callback\\\’, 5, func);}function __RP_Url_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_Url_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_Url_Callback_Vid = splitList[0];pluginList[index].__RP_Url_Callback_Parent = splitList[1];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, \\\’rp-js-url-callback\\\’, 3, func);}function __RP_TotalBytes_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_TotalBytes_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_TotalBytes_Callback_Bytes = splitList[0];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, null, 2, func);}function __RP_Connection_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_Connection_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_Connection_Callback_Url = splitList[0];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, null, 2, func);}

function __RP_Callback_Helper(str, strCallbackEvent, splitSize, func){var event = null;if (strCallbackEvent){event = document.createEvent(\\’Events\\’);event.initEvent(strCallbackEvent, true, true);}if (str && str.length > 0){var splitList = str.split(\\’|\\’);var strCompare = str;if (splitList.length == splitSize)strCompare = splitList[splitSize-1];var pluginList = document.plugins;for (var count = 0; count = sSrc.length){if (strCompare.indexOf(sSrc) != -1){func(str, count, pluginList, splitList);break;}}}}if (strCallbackEvent)document.body.dispatchEvent(event);}function __RP_Coord_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Left = splitList[0];pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Top = splitList[1];pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Right = splitList[2];pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Bottom = splitList[3];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, \\’rp-js-coord-callback\\’, 5, func);}function __RP_Url_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_Url_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_Url_Callback_Vid = splitList[0];pluginList[index].__RP_Url_Callback_Parent = splitList[1];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, \\’rp-js-url-callback\\’, 3, func);}function __RP_TotalBytes_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_TotalBytes_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_TotalBytes_Callback_Bytes = splitList[0];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, null, 2, func);}function __RP_Connection_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_Connection_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_Connection_Callback_Url = splitList[0];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, null, 2, func);}

function __RP_Callback_Helper(str, strCallbackEvent, splitSize, func){var event = null;if (strCallbackEvent){event = document.createEvent(\’Events\’);event.initEvent(strCallbackEvent, true, true);}if (str && str.length > 0){var splitList = str.split(\’|\’);var strCompare = str;if (splitList.length == splitSize)strCompare = splitList[splitSize-1];var pluginList = document.plugins;for (var count = 0; count = sSrc.length){if (strCompare.indexOf(sSrc) != -1){func(str, count, pluginList, splitList);break;}}}}if (strCallbackEvent)document.body.dispatchEvent(event);}function __RP_Coord_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Left = splitList[0];pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Top = splitList[1];pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Right = splitList[2];pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Bottom = splitList[3];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, \’rp-js-coord-callback\’, 5, func);}function __RP_Url_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_Url_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_Url_Callback_Vid = splitList[0];pluginList[index].__RP_Url_Callback_Parent = splitList[1];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, \’rp-js-url-callback\’, 3, func);}function __RP_TotalBytes_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_TotalBytes_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_TotalBytes_Callback_Bytes = splitList[0];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, null, 2, func);}function __RP_Connection_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_Connection_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_Connection_Callback_Url = splitList[0];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, null, 2, func);}