Shark Freediving

This year’s Swiss National Indoor Apnea Championships will take place on April 18 2010 at Grand-Vennes, Lausanne. Some 30 athletes will be competing in static and dynamic apnea disciplines where capacity for breath hold and stress management will be crucial to winning a national title.

Organizing this year’s event is local apnea club Immersion Profonde, helped by the Swiss Subaquatic Sports Federation (FSS) and Lausanne City Sport Services. The competition is open to both Swiss and foreign freedivers who have the possibility of validating their performances just before selection for the world championships in Okinawa. Athletes will also get the chance to improve on their AIDA ranking whilst making a stopover in Geneva before both the worlds and Bizzy Blue Hole.

The competition is open to the public and begins at 9am. For more details and registration contact immersion.profonde@bluewin.ch or visit www.immersion-profonde.ch.

I received the press release below about the US National Freediving Championships that will take place in Hawaii from April 22-25. Looks like it’s going to be an interesting competition, so if you’re in the neighborhood, go for it!

US National Freediving Championship set for April 22 through 25, 2010 at Freedive Paradise event.

Feb 25, 2010 – The United States Apnea Association (USAA) is pleased to announce that it will be hosting the U.S. National Freediving Championships from April 22 through April 25, 2010 in Kona, Hawaii. This competition will consist of six exciting events; Dynamic Apnea, Dynamic Apnea without Fins, Static Apnea, and Constant Weight, Free Immersion and Constant Weight without Fins, The Constant Weight, Free immersion and Constant Weight without Fins event will be held off the coast in the scenic Honaunau Bay, Hawaii.

Event Details are as follows:

• Event Organizers: Freedive Paradise: freediveparadise.com
  • Annabel Edwards: divebel2@yahoo.com 808 756-1372 (h) 808 328-2307
  • Jessica Wilson: nursjessy@aol.com  530 515-7977
  • Hiko Ito: 808 333-1811
• CW, FI, or CNF April 22 & 24, Honaunau Bay, meeting time: 8:30 AM
• Static: April 23, Jack’s Diving Locker, meeting time: 8:30 AM
• Dynamic with and without fins: April 25, Kona Aquatic Center, meeting time: 8:30 AM

USAA will be fielding both Men’s and Women’s Freediving Teams at the AIDA Team Freediving World Championships that will take place at the end of June in Okinawa, Japan.  Competitors who want to try out for these teams are strongly encouraged to participate in the U.S. National Freediving Championship. Additional information on team selection criteria will be released shortly.

The U.S. National Freediving Competition has no minimum performance requirements and is open to anyone wishing to compete. Competitions are an excellent way to learn more about freediving, show support for USAA and fellow freedivers, and to witness performances by some of the country’s top freedivers. USAA is also seeking volunteers to assist in the logistics and safety operations of this competition. If you are interested in volunteering, please contact the organizers.

The 4th Serbian freediving championships took place on last Saturday (more info here). 30 freedivers from 4 countries had a good competition.

There were some interesting performances during this competition. The big one came from Goran Colak who did a big static of 8:35 minutes.

Winner with the men was Domagoj Jakovac with 129,9 points. He did a6:02 min static and a 100 meter without fins. With the women Magda Milas from Croatia was the strongest with 103,8 points. She did a 4:20 min static and a 100 meter without fins.

7 disqualifications, 7 penalties and 2 blackouts in this competition, which is quite a lot in my opinion. 60 performances and 16 problems make it a percentage of 26%.

Congrats to the winners! Here is the link to the complete result lists.

Yesterday it was time for the 12th (!) Berlin Masters Cup, which took place in Berlin, Germany. 28 freedivers from 4 countries competed against each other in the disciplines static and dynamic with or without fins.

Clear winner with the women was Elisabeth Kristoffersen from Norway. She did a 6:14 breath-hold and a 136 meters underwater swim with fins. Total of 130,8 points. 2nd place was for Barbara Jeschke from Germany with 119,5 points. She did a 4:35 and a 129 meter performance.

Robert Cetler from Poland was the winner wiith the men. With a strong 7:28 min static and a 189 meter dynamic with fins, he got 184,1 points. Rune Hallum became a close 2nd with 182,1 points. With a 6:53 min static and a 199 meter dynamic with fins, he was close, but not close enough. With 56 performances in the competition there were 3  blackouts and 6 penalties.

I have some bad news; we have cancelled the Shark Dynamics competition on March 6. With only 5 freedivers shown interest two weeks before the competition, it’s not possible to continue with this competition. The pool costs are too high for that.

Also finding the second additional AIDA judge is still in progress and because of this unknown factor AIDA International didn’t put the competition on the AIDA calendar. And given the history of the last competition, some freedivers stay away of the comp until they know for sure it’s an AIDA ranking comp, which we can’t blaim them for of course.

I’m sure we could have solved the 2nd AIDA judge problem, but due to the fact that it’s not an official ranking comp at the moment, some extra freedivers are staying away and we have to cancel it.

Furthermore, Shark Sports is going to think about their involvement (and investements) in freediving in the coming time. We’re not sure how to continue with some events we had planned this year. We need some time to evaluate and communicate with some parties involved.

For the people on the volunteer list and the freedivers who have shown interest; Thank you! Hopefully we can work this out and return with some intersting events in the near future..

The Pool!

Shark Sports is going to organize another freediving competition in March (and in June, but that will be announced later). March 6, to be precise! It will again be a dynamic only competition in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

This time we need more then 8 athletes to continue with the show! While last time was pretty fun, more people make more fun.

You’ll get again two chances of competing in the dynamic discipline of your choice. And again we will be there with the next version of our video and broadcasting setup. We won’t make any promises, but if it works out it will be pretty good!

Places will be limited so be fast to subscribe. More details below

• Place: Eindhoven, The Netherlands
• Date: 6 March
• Pool: 50 meter, 2.20  meter deep, 26 degrees
• Costs: 25 euro for two official starts

Schedule (for now):

• 14:00 Opening
• 15:00 Official Top first competition
• 17:30 Official Top second competition
• 19:00 End of competition
• 20:00 Food / Party / Prizes / Fun

Send me an email to subscribe at jorg.jansen@gmail.com and I’ll reserve you a spot and send you an email as soon as the subscribe page is up.

This evening Nanja van der Broek her freediving school “Enker” will organize a static freediving competition in the Netherlands and Shark Freediving will present to compete and document the competition live.

At 20:00 (GMT+1) the warming up will start and at around 20:20 the first official top will take place. The competition will take place at swimmingpool “De Estafette” at the Helsinkilaan 1 in Nieuw Vennip (The Netherlands)

Live videostreaming of the competition depends on internet availability and 3G connectivity, but normally you can expect to see several high performing athletes live on our Shark Freediving Live page.

You can also see the announced performances, start times and updated result lists on that page as well. So have fun and good luck to all the athletes.

Dubai resident Sara-Lise Haith sent me a mail announcing the Fazza Freediving Championship UAE, a small freediving competition in Dubai where you can win a free Range Rover. In the past competition the results where pretty doable for some top freedivers, so maybe it’s something for you to join?

Keep in mind that the date of the competition can change somewhat if you want to participate. Last time it was not a regular freediving competition, so keep that in mind.

FAZZA FREEDIVING CHAMPIONSHIP UAE – APRIL 2010

The Diving Championship (Hiyari), commonly known amongst international freedivers as the “Dubai Range Rover Freediving Competition), will be held at the Le Meridien Mina Seyahi from 8th April 2010 – 9th April 2010.

Under the patronage HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairman of Dubai Executive Council, the Fazza’ Championships include traditional sporting events including falconry, hunting with dogs, archery, freediving (hiyari) and the renowned youla championships.

To reserve your place in the competition please call +971-4-362-4399. Note that calls are not always answered and some persistence may be required. The Dubai Shopping Festival website should be check regularly as information will be posted there.

AIDA Serbia officially announce 4th Serbian Open Freediving Championship Belgrade 2010. Competition will be organized by RK SEBASTIAN and APNEA CLUB DEEP STAR, and supervised by AIDA Serbia. Official Judges are: Bill Stromberg (SWE), Petar Bojovic (SRB), Darija Subotin (SRB), Aleksandar Karjuk (SRB) and Marko Kleoncic (HR).

Competition will take place in Belgrade on the Tasmajdan pool (50m, 26oC) on 20th February 2010. Disciplines: static apnea (STA) and dynamic apnea without (DNF) and with (DYN) fins (by your choice). The pool is located in Ilije Grasanina street 26-28. For more information please visit www.tasmajdan.rs. Status of the competition: AIDA ranking and WR.

A city map of Belgrade is available on www.planplus.rs. All the information about Belgrade city can be found on a official web presentation www.beograd.org.yu .

Competition is individual, nevertheless there will be prizes for best teams (team must consist of 3 members, one of opposite sex). Maximum number of competitors is 60, minimum is 20.

Registration fee: 2000,00 RSD for AIDA Serbia members, 35 Euro (3500,00 RSD) for non-AS members . T-shirt and dinner after the competiion included! Dinner will be served at club in Svetogorska street 46.

Interested for the competition should apply in the following way:

E-mail to Bačanin Nikola on nikolabac@gmail.com , subject „competition registration“. E-mail must contain: 1) name and surname, 2) country and team you are competing for, 3) contact (phone number, E-mail), 4) announcement for STA-DYN/DNF (please point it out if you want to compete only in one discipline) or Fill in the FORM on AIDA Serbia web site www.aida-serbia.com . Registration deadline: 16th of February 2010, 12:00pm.

Competitors must have medical certificate not older than 1 year. Final registration for competitors will be at the club in Svetogorska street 46 (a dinner after the competition will be at the same place). For athletes arriving on the competition day, registration will be at the pool at 8:00am. Competitors must have a medical certificate on registration, and have to fill in an AIDA Release form.

Contact:

Nikola Bačanin –Technical organization nikolabac@gmail.com, Mob: +381(0)63.493.842

Ivan Novak –Organization Board President ivan.novak@termoinzenjering.com, Mob: +381(0)69.82.65.442

Maria Hovden - Photo By Daan Verhoeven

So our first competition of the year 2010 is over and it was great! Three national records broken and some happy faces.

While there were some organizing problems with regards to the AIDA ranking and our video project, the core of the competition run well and smooth. Thanks to the help of Susan Kluytmans and Erik Skoda for judging the competition, Mario Verhagen for the general help, Marieke Broeksteeg as medical staff and Sanne Buurma for his safety work and video project help.

The competition started with a total of 18 freedivers, but unfortunately in the last week 10 people cancelled and we had to change the setup somewhat. With only 8 people freediving it would be best to give them the perfect dynamic freediving competition experience and we had the right pool to do it in.

Every freediver got 2 dynamic attempts and we kept a very easy to follow 10 minute starting time for each freediver.

In the end there were some great performances done and some personal records, but of course the 200 meter dynamic with fins done by Eric van Riet Paap was for sure the highlight of the competition. Nanja van den Broek completed this by doing a new national record of 155 meters, only hours after returning from Dahab and still the depth in her legs and using all kind of borrowed material.

And of course we have to mention Daan who set the first national record by doing a 175 meter dynamic with fins. But, poor Daan,  then Eric was let loose in the pool and did his 200 meter dive.

It was great to have Sanne, Nanja, Maria, Judith, Peter, Eric, Daan and Marc in the pool and it was for sure fun to see them dive.

There were the normal strange dives, like Eric his crawl over the bottom giving him a total of -145 points. Or Daan doing his upside down dynamic no fins dive. We ended the competition with a nice meal at the swimming pool restaurant.

Click here for the complete result list

It was fun to organize once again and next time will be bigger and better yet again!

Daan saying Hi to the online viewers

The Videos

We setup some camera’s to capture all the action going on so that we could stream everything. Too bad not everything was a success due to limited bandwidth and some other factors, but nevertheless I think you can enjoy the footage we got from the turning point @ 50/150 meters. Watch it here and see the time codes below to watch each turn.

0:16:40 – Peter – 50m
0:26:40 – Daan – 50m – the first turn of a 175 meter dive
0:27:50 – Daan – 150m – only 25 meters to go
0:36:40 – Eric – 50m – did he know already he was going for 200?
0:38:30 – Eric – 150m – only 50 meters to go for a 200 meter dive!
0:46:40 – Marc – 50m
1:08:10 – Sanne – 50m
1:16:40 – Judtih – 50m
1:36:40 – Nanja – 50m – the first turn of her national record dive
1:38:28 – Nanja – 150m – 5 meters later she comes up for a new dutch record
1:46:40 – Peter – 50m
1:56:40 – Daan – 50m – Daan has a message for the viewers
2:08:54 – Eric – 50m – Watch Eric crawl on the floor
2:16:40 – Marc – 50m
2:26:40 – Maria – 50m

Here is the static cam from the corner of the pool. Unfortunately it’s pretty low quality due to the bandwidth limitation.

Mobile Cam Video’s: Judith 1, Maria 1, Peter 1, Daan 1, Eric 1, Marc 1, Sanne 2, Judtih 2, Nanja 2, Peter 2, Daan 2, Eric 2, Marc 2, Maria 2