Shark Freediving

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.

Just received an email from William Trubridge announcing the Vertical Blue competition of this year. And wow, it will be very special!

The competition takes place from April 17 to 27 and will have a very special competition format. All three disciplines will take place during this comp and the special thing is that Martin Stepanek, Herbert Nitsch and William Trubridge will compete against each other during this event!

This already impressive field will be completed by divers like Guillaume Nery, Ryuzo Shinomiya, Dave Mullins, Walter Steyn, William Winram and Robert King.  All in all it looks like it’s going to be the deepest competition of the year!

More information about the event and the special rules on William Trubridge his website.

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.

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.

Once again the H2O Team is organizing another MAD CUP. This will be the 6th version and it will take place during the first weekend of March. The MAD CUP is probably one of the best organized and biggest pool competitions that will take place this year.

It all takes place in the beautiful city of Maribor, Slovenia. Great place to stay and enjoy a few extra days as well (from my own experience)

The competition website is already up and running, but for the moment it’s only in Slovene. English version will be online end of the week. So keep an eye on it!

Got some exciting news coming hopefully within a few weeks. If you live in the neighbourhood of the Netherlands, you don’t want to miss this.

Remember the freediving movie Oceanmen? If you missed it on the big screen, Shark Freediving might have a nice surprise for you… so watch the news!

I love innovation! Especially in the topics of my interest, for example freediving. So when some freedivers think of something new to test our limits in, it’s always a fun thing to see what goes on.

The Greene Freediving Team from Germany organized a fun team competition in their pool with some new and interesting disciplines:

• Static Team (Team: 3 People)
• Static + 50m Dynamic Team
• Dynamic Team
• 18 x 25m relay race
• 25m beer-barrel-roll

Looking interesting doesn’t it? Too bad the beer barrel was filled with water, otherwise that would have been a great first prize!

All in all they had 15 freedivers competing against each other in 4 teams. You can find the results here.

Below some video’s from the different disciplines, thanks to Andrea Richichi. Enjoy!

Organizer of the famous Mediteranean Freediving Meeting, Stavros Kastrinakis, has announced the third edition of his event for 2010 and it will be bigger then ever. Read the information below!

During the past 2 years the Mediterranean Freediving Meeting has been one of the biggest depth competitions in the AIDA calendar . The Meeting has traditionally been a 15 day event with one week of organized depth training / sled diving / record organising and a week long depth competition with World Record status.

After the success of the last two years we have decided that the Mediterranean Freediving Meeting will be upgraded to a World Cup event for 2010 and will include both an individual and a team event (teams will be national teams of 3) and will again include all 3 depth disciplines. ( A small static competition will also be run during the event).

The 3rd Mediterranean Freediving World Cup will be a 15 day event starting on Monday June 7th and finishing on Sunday June 20th with one week of training and one week of competition in all depth disciplines with Ranking and World Record status. Sled diving will also be available and we will also be able to organise record attempts during the training week and possibly during the competition week.

Besides the training and competition part of the event this year (same as the years before) a series of activities will be arranged in the afternoons/evenings including UW photo exhibitions, talks, UW film screening, visits etc which will allow athletes to do more than “dive-eat-sleap”. These activities will be open to all therefore allowing athletes to make this event a real holiday and the general public to learn more about freediving and the underwater world.

The Mediterranean Freediving World Cup will be hosted by the city of Kalamata in the south of Greece (nearest airport is Kalamata -KLX). The municipality of Kalamata has been very enthusiastic and has given us their full support for the event which will certainly make the 2010 Mediterranean Freediving World Cup an amazing event. Their help will include:

1. Free transfers from Kalamata airport and one free shuttle to take all athletes, wishing to fly in to Athens the day before the start of the event, to our hotel in Kalamata.
2. Opening ceremony and Awards/Closing ceremony & party
3. An exhibition hall will be made available for all our activities – Fred Buyle has agreed to have an open Photo Exhibition for the duration of the event and we will plan many evening activities such as video screenings, presentations etc
4. A 4 star beachside resort hotel will be the base of the World Cup with the assistance of the municipality we are working hard on getting this venue for prices similar to rent-a-rooms.
5. Free guided visit of the site of ancient Olympia – the birthplace of the Olympic games.
6. Free parallel activities for the evening in colaboration with local mountain climbing clubs etc for those of you that feel like exploring the beautiful region near Kalamata.
7. The Mayor’s press office will be actively working with the organisers giving the Mediterranean World Cup a lot more media attention than we see in most competititions.

The webpage is currently under construction waiting for some details to be finalized. More information here. A full webpage will be up very soon.

Preliminary Schedule:

• Sunday 6th June, Late afternoon transfer bus leaving from Athens to transfer all athletes flying into Athens to our hotel in Kalamata
• Monday 7th June, morning – 1st training/test session, evening – Registration & Opening Ceremony organized by the Municipality of Kalamata
• Tuesday 8th June, Opening of Fred Buyle’s U/W Photography Exhibition
• Thursday 10th June, Late afternoon – Guided tour of ancient Olympia organized by the Municipality of Kalamata
• Sunday 13th June, Mediterranean World Cup Event Meeting & Performance Announcements
• Monday 14th June, 1st Competition Day Mediterranean World Cup
• Sunday 20th June, Closing Ceremony & Party Organized by the Municipality of Kalamata
• Sunday 20th June, Late tranfer bus to Athens Airport for all those leaving from Athens