Shark Freediving

Okay, that’s weird! I was looking for some information about the depth freediving world championships at the Bahamas in November this year. It isn’t even on the official AIDA calendar! I know that AIDA has some problems at the moment, but this one should really be on the calendar.

Anyway, as the competition starts in around a month, it’s time to put some facts on the table, so here we go.

• 2009 AIDA Freediving World Championships
• Location: Dean’s Blue Hole on Long Island in the Bahamas
• Date: November 25 – December 5 2009
• Website: http://verticalblue.net/ (official website should become live soon)
• Disciplines: Constant Weight (CWT) / Constant Weight without fins (CNF)
• 51 Athletes, 17 female, 34 male
• 17 nations

Schedule

List of Athletes

On November 27 2009 the 2nd Europe Evolution Cup will start. It’s a big event in Italy that takes 3 days and holds a CMAS and AIDA freediving competition together with a scientific freediving lecture.

The CMAS competition will be the winter open Italian Championships and will consists of the 3 pool disciplines static, dynamic with and without fins. There are even 1000 euro prizes for the 1st prize man and woman.

The race can be followed live through www.evolutionchannel.tv and if you’re lucky you can see some very good performances! Last years edition brought 3 new world records. Some famous freedivers like Umberto Pelizzari will be present and interviewed on the above website as well.

More information on the official competition website. Freely translated schedule of the event when you read further.

Read the rest of this entry →

On Friday and Saturday there was an Swedish pool competition going on in Valhalla, Göteborg. On Friday the freedivers competed in the discipline dynamic with or without fins and on Saturday again the same discipline plus static.

With 10 athletes from 3 countries it was a pretty small competition. 7 male and 3 female freedivers made it through the 2 competition days.

On Friday Ulf Lindberg from Sweden did a 183 meter dynamic with fins setting the longest distance with the men. With the women Sofia Tapani was best with a 145 meter dynamic with fins.

On Saturday Jens  Schou did a 7:44 static and Klara Hansson a 4:45. Static is clearly loosing attention, because only 6 athletes out of the ten competed in this discipline.

Afterwards it was time for again dynamic. Daan Verhoeven from the Netherlands did best with a 134 meter with fins dive. Sofia Tapani did a 115 meter without fins.

Out of the 23 performances set in total during this competition, there were only 2 disqualifications. Both during static, one being a blackout and one being a surface protocol error.

Look below for complete results.

This year for the fifth time there will be another Freediving competition in Zagreb, Croatia; The Submania Cup. The date for this is 14 November and the organizers will include static and dynamic with or without fins. There will be WR status on this competition, and they invite everybody to come and compete.

Static pool is 1,4m deep and water is around 27 degrees, Dynamic pool is 3m deep with constant depth and around 26 degrees. There will be individual, team and combine ranking, for the combination there is formula for DNF to DYN calculation and that is DNF x 1,15 + 15m.

The price is 35€ for all non AIDA Croatia members and the page for registration and with all additional information will be up and running asap. I will update this article as soon as the website is live.

Update: Here’s the website!

Last Saturday it was time for the famous Rhein Main Cup 2009 version that takes place every year in Wiesbaden, Germany. It’s been a while since I last visited a freediving competition, so we planned to go visit it with Team Sharkbait.

As always the organisation ran without any problems after all these years of experience. It was good to see some new and old friends, so we could chat the time away. With 43 competitors from 11 different countries it was a good international field.

Robert Cetler from Poland won the men competition with a 7:46 minute static and a 175 meter dynamic with fins dive. Both are new national records and delivered him 180,7 points.

Second place was for Goran Colak from Croatia with 175,4 points. He did a 8:02 national record. Michael Mrozowski from Poland set a new national record in dynamic without fins by doing a distance of 158 meters.

Lidija Lijik from Croatia won the women competition with a 4:36 static and a 140 meter dynamic with fins. Total points 125,2.

From the 86 performances done there were 11 performance that resulted in zero points. I don’t know exactly how many blackouts there were, but I saw at least 3, with one pretty serious one after doing a 135 meter dynamic without fins.

All in all it was fun to be at a competition again. Team member Sanne Buurma wrote a article on his personal experience and put a video and some photo’s online. Complete results can be found here.

From september 1 to 9 there is another competition going on in Dahab, Egypt. It’s then time again for the famous Triple Depth competition. Many competitors will be joining this competition to do some freediving in the disciplines constant weight with and without fins and Free Immersion.

The competition has a reputation of delivering some very good performances and looking at the competitors list it could become very interesting. More news about the competition at this website.

The current competitor list consists of the following names:

1. Shirly Oppenhein, ISR
2. Alexander Kravchik, ISR
3. Maria Felicia Carraturo, ITA
4. Rob King, USA
5. Marc Lenoir, FRA
6. Bettina Wolfer, CH
7. Kathryn Mcpee, NZ
8. Sina Schieweck, GER
9. Mike Wells, AUS
10. Flavia Eberhard, BRA
11. Marek Apjar, CZE
12. Roman Ondruj,CZE
13. Wendy Timmermans, NDL
14. Jarmila Slovencikova,CZE
15. Gordon Savic, SER
16. Mateusz Malina, POL
17. George Miller, UK
18. Liv Philips, UK
19. Stuart Bond, UK
20. Itay Henigeberg, ISR
21. Alon Rivkind, ISR
22. Ingela Karlsson, FIN
23. Agata Bogusz, POL
24. Ofil sabag, ISR
25. amit larom, isr
26. ashod papazian, EGY
27. john daines, ?
28. kars ?, NDL
29. karsten Schneider, GER
30. jana strain, CAN

Last weekend it was time for the Freedive Paradise competition on Kona, Hawaii. 3 days of competing in depth and the pool with some interesting competitors.

The first day the competition took the divers out to Honaunau bay for a beautiful day of diving. Six divers competed in constant weight, free immersion, and constant no fins. All six divers received white cards, and Annabel Edwards set a new US record for constant weight no fins with a dive to 48 meters.

• Ant Judge (AUS) 83m CW
• Leo Muraoka (USA) 76m FI
• Kurt Chambers (USA) 70m FI
• Jessica Wilson (USA) 62m CW
• David Sims (USA) 55 FI
• Annabel Edwards (USA) 48m CNF

Day 2 braught some very good static results. Bill Graham is officially the new mens US static record holder with 7:39. Watch the video below.

STATICS

• Bill Graham 7:39 (ap 7.30) 91.8 point
• Kurt Chambers 7:02 (ap 6.00) 84.4 point
• Julie Bassilion 6:53 (ap 5.30) 82.6 point
• Annabel Edwards 6:17, (ap 2.00) 75.4 points
• Ant Judge (Aus) 6:02 (ap 4.00) 72.4 points
• Tim Money (UK) 5:45 (ap 5.00) 69 points
• David Simms 5:27 (ap 4.00) 65.4 points
• Walter Johnson 3:49 (ap 5.00) 30.8 points (incl penalty)
• Jessica Wilson 6:32 (ap 5.00) DQ SP

Annabel Edwards

The final day. Annabel Edwards sets a new womens USA DNF record.

• Ant Judge (AUS) 156m DYN
• Jessica Wilson (USA) 136m DYN
• Leo Muraoka (USA) 136m DYN
• Tim Money (UK) 117m DNF
• Annabel Edwards (USA) 116m DNF
• Kevin Busscher (USA) 111m DNF
• Bill Graham (USA) 109 DYN
• David Simms (USA) 81m DNF
• Kurt Chambers (USA) 109m DNF DQSP

Second go STATIC:

• Ben Weiss (USA) 6.22 STA
• Jessica Wilson (USA) 6.00 STA
• Walter Johnson (USA) 5.35 STA

(Thanks to KP for reporting)

With almost 200 registered freedivers competing during the pool freediving world championships that will take place in Denmark this month, it promises to become a big and interesting event.

Because of the combination of the AIDA and CMAS world championships, they changed the schedule (some athletes were not so happy with that because of wrong arrival dates and missing disciplines). So see below the complete schedule for the competition.

AIDA

Saturday 15/8 – 2009

12.00 – 19.00 Open training (Aarhus Swim Stadium)

Sunday 16/8 – 2009

12.00 – 14.00 Open training (Aarhus Swim Stadium)

Monday 17/8 – 2009

09.00 – 12.00 Open training (Aarhus Swim Stadium)
16.00 – 19.00 Open training (Aarhus Swim Stadium)
19.00 – 22.00 Verification1 (at Aarhus Swim Stadium)

Tuesday 18/8 – 2009

09.00 – 12.00 Training 25 meter pool(Aarhus Swim Stadium)
12.00 – 13.30 Verification (at Aarhus Swim Stadium)
14.00 – 15.00 DNF Event Committee, obligatory for national selectors!
DNF qual. performance announcements (at Aarhus Swim Stadium)
15.15 – 15.45 AIDA opening Ceremony
16.00 – 19.00 Freewc09 opening Ceremony at the Mayors reception.

Wednesday 19/8 – 2009

08.00 – 10.00 Open training 50 meter pool
10.15 – 12.00 Open training 25 meter pool
13.00 – 13.30 STA qual. announcement deadline (at the pool info desk)
14.15 – 15.00 First DNF warm-up
15.00 – 18.45 DNF qualification heats
19.00 – 19.30 DNF finals performance announcement
deadline (at the pool info desk)
National selectors only!
19.30 – 20.30 STA Event Committee
(competitor meeting room)
Obligatory for national selectors!

Thursday 20/8 – 2009

08.15 – 09.00 First STA warm-up
09.00 – 12.20 STA qualification heats
12.30 – 13.00 DYN qual. & STA finals performance announcement deadline
(at the pool info desk)
National selectors only!
13.00 – 14.30 Open training 25 meter pool
14.45 – 16.30 Open training 50 meter pool
17.15 – 18.00 First DNF finals warm-up
18.00 – 18.15 DNF B final heat (women)
18.15 – 18.30 DNF B final heat (men)
18.45 – 19.00 DNF A final heat (women)
19.00 – 19.15 DNF A final heat (men)
20.00 – 21.00 DYN Event Commitee
(competitor meeting room at the pool)
Obligatory for national selectors!

Friday 21/8 – 2009

08.15 – 09.00 First STA final heats warm-up
09.00 – 09.20 STA B final heat (women)
09.20 – 09.40 STA B final heat (men)
10.00 – 10.20 STA A final heat (women)
10.20 – 10.40 STA A final heat (men)
11.00 – 16.00 Pause
16.15 – 17.00 First DYN warm-up
17.00 – 19.30 DYN qualification heats
20.00 – 20.30 DYN finals performance announcement deadline (at the pool info desk) National selectors only!
20.30 – 21.00 DYN finals Event Committee
Obligatory for 16 best competitors or their representatives!

Saturday 22/8 – 2009

07.00 – 09.00 Open training 50 meter pool – 16 best competitors only!
14.00 – 15.15 Training – 16 best competitors only!
15.15 – 16.00 First DYN finals warm-up
16.00 – 16.15 DYN B final heat (women)
16.15 – 16.30 DYN B final heat (men)
16.45 – 17.00 DYN A final heat (women)
17.00 – 17.15 DYN A final heat (men)
19.30 – 20.15 Award giving ceremony
20.45 Farewell Dinner, disco and
Team Static ind the 5 meter jump pool.

CMAS

Saturday 15/8 – 2009

12.00 – 19.00 Open training (Aarhus Swim Stadium)

Sunday 16/8 – 2009

12.00 – 14.00 Open training (Aarhus Swim Stadium)

Monday 17/8 – 2009

09.00 – 12.00 Open training (Aarhus Swim Stadium)
16.00 – 19.00 Open training (Aarhus Swim Stadium)

Tuesday 18/8 – 2009

09.00 – 12.00 Free traning 25 meter pool (Aarhus Swim Stadium)
12.15 – 15.00 Free traning 50 meter pool (Aarhus Swim Stadium)
09.00 – 15.00 Judge assistants tranining.
15.15 – 15.45 CMAS opening Ceremony
16.00 – 19.00 Freewc09 opening Ceremony at the Mayors reception.
20.00 – 21.00 Verification (at Aarhus Swim Stadium)

Wednesday 19/8 – 2009

08.00 – 11.00 Open training 25 meter pool
10.00 – 12.00 Open training 50 meter pool
09:00 – 15:45 Free traning 25 meter pool.
16.00 – 18.30 Captains/Technical meeting an Verification (at Aarhus Swim Stadium)

Thursday 20/8 – 2009

09:15 – 14.30 Free traning 25 meter pool.
14.45 – 16.30 Open training 50 meter pool

Friday 21/8 – 2009

08:15 to 11.00 Free traning 25 meter pool.
11.00 – 15.30 CMAS DYN qualification heat in 50 meter pool.
17.00 – 18.30 Captains/Technical meeting.

Saturday 22/8 – 2009

08.30 – 13.45 CMAS DYN finals and Award giving ceremony
19.30 – 20.15 Freewc award giving ceremony
20.45 Farewell Dinner, disco and
Team Static ind the 5 meter jump pool.

Between 27th and 31st of July it was time for the Crystal Clear Water competition in Lake Hancza in Poland.  4 competition days with a total of 10 competitors. With 6 national records set during this comp, it was a good one. Results below.

CWT

1. Robert Cetler – 64m – NR
2. Konrad Wojnar – 46m
3. Karol Szaro – 36m
4. Marcin Niedzielski – 25m

FIM

1. Jonas Krahn – 71m
2. Bartek Janiszewski – 63m – NR
3. Marcin Niedzielski, Michał Mrozowski – 37m
4. Karol Szaro – 34m
5. Robert Cetler – 50m (29 pkt.)

CNF

1. Maciej Lipiec – 51m – NR
2. Konrad Wojnar – 36m
3. Karol Szaro – 28m

Last weekend in Quebeq (Canada) it was time for the Canadian Depth Nationals. With 2 women and 8 men it was a small depth discipline spread over 2 days.

With the women Roberta Cenedee was the winner with a 40 meter constant weight and 40 meter free immersion dive.

Peter Scott was the winner with the men with a 46 meter constant with fins  dive and a 40 meter constant without fins dive. Peter is famous for his neutral lung dives (FRC), so probably he did these dives in this way.

Complete results here.