Shark Freediving

Ah, I forgot this one! Bill Stromberg his own website, Apneamania, also has a yearly award show and he just announced the 2009 awards. Unlike  the ICARE awards, the Apneamania awards are purely based on performance and not on popularity. I just wonder where he did get the complete ranking of 2009 from, because I can’t find it. But then again, the big numbers of 2009 are proabably all known by now.

Since 1999, the World Freediving Award has been presented to the world’s best freedivers in COMPETITIONS in each category. This Award is unique, and is based on the AIDA World Ranking list from each year.

2009 is our 10th Anniversary, and this years winners are:

Constant Weight,
Natalia Molchanova, Russia, 101m / 101 points, 090925
Herbert Nitsch, Austria, 120m / 120 points, 090411

Static,
Natalia Molchanova, Russia, 8′23″ / 100,6 points, 090821
Guy Brew, New Zealand, 9′03″ / 108.3 points, 090711

Dynamic with fins,
Natalia Molchanova, Russia, 213m / 106,5 points, 090822
Goran Colak, Croatia, 233m / 116,5 points, 091114

Dynamic without fins,
Natalia Molchanova, Russia, 160m / 80 points, 090820
Dave Mullin, New Zeeland, 232m / 116 points, 090711

Constant Weight without fins,
Natalia Molchanova, Russia, 62m / 62 points, 091203
William Trubridge, New Zealand, 90m / 90 points, 091203

Free Immersion,
Natalia Molchanova, Russia, 90m / 90 points, 090927
Herbert Nitsch, Austria, 109m / 109 points, 090406

Some curiosities after 2009 are that Herbert Nitsch now is the first freediver in the world, ever, who sometime during his freediving career has been a World Record holder in all 8th disciplines! Herbert is also the first to copy Pelizzari’s feat to hold WR’s in Constant, Variable and No Limits at the same time. Then it’s interesting to know that Natalia Molchanova is the first freediver, men included, who achieved more than 100 points in each depth, length and time disciplines inside of the same year.

First day is over. In brief it was a nice first competition day which saw some very good results. Most of the time I was filming underwater and it was some time ago that I saw so many different techniques. I’m typing this from a QWERTZ keyboard so I keep the post short, because it takes to much time to write something.

Here’s the result list from today’s DNF.

Tomorrow morning Static and in the afternoon Dynamic with fins. I already got many photos and videos but these will be uploaded when I get back. You can follow live coverage as it happens during the competition at my twitter feed.

Ah, the wonders of automated posting! When this article is being published I’m already on my way with the Team Sharkbait crew to Geneva in Switzerland, to visit the 7th Coupe des Dauphins competition. The competition starts on Saturday evening with dynamic without fins and continues the day after with static and dynamic with fins. And of course we wouldn’t be driving these 850 kilometers if it weren’t for the party afterwards!

If there is an internet connection I will give you an update during and/or after the competition. In the mean time here is the freedivecentral competition website. 58 competitors from 10 countries is a good international line up!

LAST MINUTE UPDATE: I’ll be twittering all the latest info, including pictures, to my twitterfeed which you can find by going to my personal website and looking at the right collumn, or by directly visiting the feed itself on twitter. If you’re familiar with twitter and have your own account over there you can follow me and even ask questions directly to me at the competition. You have a question for a competitor like William Winram? Just ask me and I let the person reply by himself!

Probably many of you never heard of Esther Williams, but it appears that in her peak days she was a pretty well known actress in Hollywood. As a former swim athlete she made several underwater musicals where she swam in her typical mermaid style way, shot and edited in such a way as if she could breath underwater. It gives a pretty and also somewhat funny picture as you can see in the video below.

She had a few oxygen related accidents and even some hearing problems because she broke her ear drums several times during shoots for her films. More about her on her own website or her wikipedia page.

I wonder how long she really could hold her breath with all the shooting and training she did for her films.

From August 30th to September 6th CMAS will organize their first European Apnea Championship in Antalya, Turkey. They will be hosting this competition with 3 different disciplines. First the jump blue, then a dynamic competition and lastly a new experimental speed apnea discipline.

For the people who forgot about CMAS and their intentions to take over the freediving world; everybody is invited to join this competition but if you compete here you need to know that you sell your soul to the devil, because after this it’s forever forbidden to participate in an AIDA competition. You see CMAS has some crazy rule that the only federation that you can freedive with is their own Uber organization. If you still dare to compete with the dark force that is called AIDA then you will be banned from CMAS. Now that’s what I call customer binding!

As most freedivers live up to their name and they want to be free, they mostly ignore this competition. For sure the top freedivers from AIDA will not be there and the level of freediving going on at a CMAS world champion competition is about the same as many national AIDA competitions.

Everybody is free to do what they want, but when an organization is making such stupid rules everybody should ban this competition. Sometimes I wonder what these kind of people are thinking and it brings back memories of one of my favorite cartoons “Pinky and the Brain”

If you absolutely, positively, sureability must have more info about this event, then you can visit their website by clicking on the small dot . (Just to make sure that you’re very sure)

Okay, I just watched the video below and I’m not so sure what to think. My thoughts go from funny to sexy. As I’m writing this on an open and public website I think I go for funny and I keep the other option for in my dreams…

Last Saturday it was time for the Underground Apnea III freediving pool competition in Tampere Finland. 14 freedivers participated in this competition from which only 1 was a woman. All freedivers came from Finland, so I guess they don’t like foreigners over there or we don’t like Finland.

This is the first competition that makes use of the AIDA results machine, so it’s pretty easy to pull out the results. At the same time it’s also interesting to link to all the names mentioned in this article so when you click on their name you see a full overview of all competitions they attended. Great stuff!

Lets start with the women, sorry woman. Paivi Mettovaara got the first place prize with a 4:15 static and a 104 meter dynamic with fins. Congrats to her.

With the men Jussi Lehtonen was the winner with a 6:32 static and a 125 meter dynamic with fins. Second place was for Eero Soralahti who did a 5:01 and a 129 meter dynamic with fins. Eero put himself to the goal of reaching 200 meters in dynamic in 2007 and what I understood he took a little break after his failed attempts during the world championships in Maribor. So this is his first competition again and I hope he will reach his goal this year. Third place was for Saku Saaristo who did a 5:25 static and a 100 meter dynamic.

See the complete results in the AIDA results machine here. The pictures attached to this article are from Kimmo Lahtinen and you can watch a slideshow of his photos here.

I’m always trying to make some nice bubble rings underwater in such a way I can swim through them. I make scientific calculations about water termp, tide, stand of the moon and sun, volume of my puffs, body position, etc. And see here some stupid dolphins who make us look like fools… I guess I’m just jealous. Those damn freediving masters!

…or at least the people who come with Frederic Buyle to do a course over there.

Of course I don’t have to tell you anything about that fabulous place in Brussel with the 35 meter diving pit. Open for scuba divers for already 3 years, closed to freedivers for at least as many years. The first steps at opening up for freediving have now come with the introduction of Frederic Buyle’s freediving courses in that place. I received the following information from Fred:

AIDA Deep Tank Freediver course at Nemo33!

The 3 first ever freediving courses in Nemo 33 will take place in may 2008! Choice of 3 dates for the AIDA Deep Tank Freediver with Fred Buyle:
5th and 6th of may 2008
9th and 10th of may 2008
10th and 11th of may 2008

The courses will take place at Nemo 33, the world’s deepest pool over two days. It includes classroom sessions, 4 pool sessions and AIDA Tank Freediver certification. Freediving documentaries and slideshows’s projection during the evening.

Price: 425 Euros for the 5th/6th of may and 9th/10th of may, 450 Euros for the 10th/11th of may. Possibility of package deals for accommodation and meals. Stay tuned for more infos.

For more informations, please contact Fred.