Shark Freediving

Deep Water Cup Okinawa 2009

Jorg — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 06:36:13 +0000

Yesterday, July 17, was the Deep Water Cup 2009. A freediving competition in Maeda on the island Okinawa of Japan. A competition in the 3 competition depth disciplines. Results are just in and hopefully I translated it correctly from Japanese to English.

M1 CWT Sakai Hiroshi 69 65 60

M2 CWT Ookawa Yasushi 47 47 47

M3 CWT Yokoyama Tetsuya 76 62 47

M4 CWT Noguchi Tsuyoshi 10 10 10

M5 CWT Watanabe Keniti 15 7 0

F1 CWT Hirai Misuzu 68 68 68

F2 CWT Ishiwata Motoko 20 20 20

M1 CNF Kitahara Susumu 41 41 41

M1 FIM Kumuzawa Takanori 41 41 41

F1 FIM Hara Tikako 22 22 21

CNF Tominaga Naoyuki 65 40 0 PULL

FIM Michael 60 60 0 SP 16

CWT Tamaki 45 24 0 PULL

CWT Mutou Yuki 41 41 0 BO

CNF Moriya Shigeru 40 40 0 BO

CWT Takagi Yui 40 39 0 BO

Constant Weight with fins

(Name, Announced Performance, Realized Performance, Points)

Men

Sakai Hiroshi 69 65 60
Ookawa Yasushi 47 47 47
Yokoyama Tetsuya 76 62 47
Noguchi Tsuyoshi 10 10 10
Watanabe Keniti 15 7 0

Women

Hirai Misuzu 68 68 68
Ishiwata Motoko 20 20 20

Constant Weight without fins

Men

Kitahara Susumu 41 41 41

Free Immersion

Men

Kumuzawa Takanori 41 41 41

Women

Hara Tikako 22 22 21

Disqualifications and Blackout

CNF Tominaga Naoyuki 65 40 0 PULL
FIM Michael 60 60 0 SP 16
CWT Tamaki 45 24 0 PULL
CWT Mutou Yuki 41 41 0 BO
CNF Moriya Shigeru 40 40 0 BO
CWT Takagi Yui 40 39 0 BO

(Photo’s from Ryozo’s Apnea Blog)

SaltFree Double Dip 2009

Jorg — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:31:11 +0000

This weekend is time for the SaltFree Double Dip 2009 freediving competition at the NDAC facility in Chepstow, UK. Two days of deep freediving in the disciplines constant weight with and without fins, and free immersion. The schedule with the depths has been published and there are some interesting dives to see.

The organizer Samantha Kirby is going to give real-time updates on their twitter account, which you can follow here.

Good luck to all the freedivers! Top Times below.

Dutch National Pool Team Selection

Jorg — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 04:33:47 +0000

Also the Dutch have selected their national team that will represent the Netherlands during the Pool World championships in Denmark.

Men

Eric van Riet Paap (Wildcard)
Arjen Costerus
Erik Skoda

Women

Nanja van den Broek

There is still room for more. With the men there is a place left for static and dynamic without fins. For the women there is still space for 2 static, 2 dynamic with fins and 2 dynamic without fins places. Anybody with a Dutch nationality who wants to go to the worlds, this is your change. Contact the Dutch Freediving Association as soon as possible!

Depth World Championships 2009

Jorg — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:29:29 +0000

The first information about the depth world championships for 2009 are beginning to come out and the wild-cards are also known. It will be interesting to see which athletes are going to attend this competition which will take place in Dean’s blue hole, Bahamas, from November 25 till December 5. Below a first email and the wild-cards for this competition.

Information regarding the AIDA depth World Championships to be held in Dean’s Blue Hole, Bahamas from November 25 – December 5, 2009.

All AIDA National Associations have been sent a pdf file containing the information required for registration of the athletes selected for this event.

For athletes from countries where there is no national AIDA, you need to contact AIDA International at info@aida-international.org. If no one else from your country applies for your discipline then you will qualify automatically, otherwise AIDA will arrange a selection method with the other candidates from your country.

Once you have qualified and sent the entry fee, the organisers will send you information regarding booking accommodation, travel advice, and how to complete your registration.

If you believe you should have qualified then you need to contact your National AIDA. Qualification is as follows:

- Each country may send one athlete per sex per discipline.

- If this first athlete is equal to or better than the minima (see below), the country can send one more athlete.

- In addition, the top ten athletes from the 2008 AIDA Ranking list qualify automatically as wild cards, and do not count in the above process.

NB if an athlete qualifies for one discipline they will not be able to compete in the other discipline unless they have qualified for that also.

The minima are:

women: CNF 30m, CWT 55m

men: CNF 40m, CWT 75m

(must have been performed in an official AIDA competition with ranking after the 27th of November 2007).

Information regarding the AIDA depth World Championships to be held in Dean’s Blue Hole, Bahamas from November 25 – December 5, 2009.

All AIDA National Associations have been sent a pdf file containing the information required for registration of the athletes selected for this event.

For athletes from countries where there is no national AIDA, you need to contact AIDA International at info@aida-international.org. If no one else from your country applies for your discipline then you will qualify automatically, otherwise AIDA will arrange a selection method with the other candidates from your country.

Once you have qualified and sent the entry fee, the organisers will send you information regarding booking accommodation, travel advice, and how to complete your registration.

If you believe you should have qualified then you need to contact your National AIDA. Qualification is as follows:

Each country may send one athlete per sex per discipline.

If this first athlete is equal to or better than the minima (see below), the country can send one more athlete.

In addition, the top ten athletes from the 2008 AIDA Ranking list qualify automatically as wild cards, and do not count in the above process.

NB if an athlete qualifies for one discipline they will not be able to compete in the other discipline unless they have qualified for that also.

The minima are:

women: CNF 30m, CWT 55m

men: CNF 40m, CWT 75m

(must have been performed in an official AIDA competition with ranking after the 27th of November 2007).

Wild cards are:

Nicola Roderick

CNF WOMEN:

MOLCHANOVA Natalia RUS

AVSEENKO Natalia RUS

RODERICK Nicola NZL

MCPHEE Kathryn NZL

FABRIO Karla CRO

KITAHAMA Junko JPN

WOLFER Bettina SUI

LIVBJERG Maria DEN

VON BOETTICHER Anna GER

PHILIP Olivia K. GBR

Last depth: 40m
CNF MEN:

TRUBRIDGE William NZL

MALDAMÉ Christian FRA

GIANKOS Manolis GRE

KING Robert USA

JAKOVAC Domagoj CRO

ZBYNEK Josef CZE

ERNEST Christian SWE

LARSSON Anders SWE

VRDOLJAK Tomo CRO

JÖRGENSEN Mads Becker DEN

TURRENT Luis MEX

Last depth: 45m (2 athletes)

Julie Gautier

MOLCHANOVA Natalia RUS

CRUICKSHANK Mandy-Rae CAN

SLOVENCÍKOVÁ Jarmila CZE

GAUTIER Julie FRA

SCHRAPPE Carolina BRA

HIRAI Misuzu JPN

SOLOMONS Maria Teresa GBR

AVSEENKO Natalia RUS

MCPHEE Kathryn NZL

WILSON Jessica USA

Last depth: 65m

CWT MEN:

MULLINS David NZL

SHINOMIYA Ryuzo JPN

MOLCHANOV Alexey RUS

GIANKOS Manolis GRE

STEPANEK Martin CZE

NÉRY Guillaume FRA

MANA Federico ITA

MALDAMÉ Christian FRA

DAHLSTRÖM Johan SWE

CHATZIASLAN Dimitris GRE

Last depth: 85m

Umberto Pelizzari freedives with Whale Shark & Manta Rays

Jorg — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 09:19:39 +0000

Umberto Pelizzari

Freediving videos are always a great inspiration and I really like to use them to enrich the content on my website. The Underwater Channel has for sure some really good video’s over there. First there were already some freediving video’s by Sara Campbell, but now Umberto Pelizzari has teamed up with the Underwater Channel.

So in July we will see three Umberto videos of him freediving in the Maldives with whale shark, manta rays and coral reefs. The first with the whale shark was already great, but now the second video is live and Umberto is swimming with Manta Rays and this video is even better. It’s great to see that he shows respect to the underwater life by not touching it, but just try to be close and blend in.

Really worth to take a look. Only comment I have to say about the Underwater channel is that I really don’t like the fact that you can’t embed the videos on your own website. The web is open and content should be moved freely around. The reason I didn’t report about the first video here was the fact that I couldn’t embed it in the post. The Underwater Channel has some short 30 second versions of the video’s on Youtube, but thaose are just teasers, so I don’t even embed them here.

Karol Meyer 18:32 Oxygen Breath-hold

Jorg — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:55:28 +0000

Karol Meyer

On July 10 Karol Meyer from Brazil did a static of 18:32 minutes with the help of oxygen. She planned to take the Guinness World Record with this time. And while 18:32 minutes is indeed 29 seconds more the Gianluca Genoni his Guinness record set in november 2008, it is not more then the current oxygen static record.

Guinness record validation works in a slow way, so Karol Meyer probably asked Guinness what the current record was and got the response that Gianluca’s record was the latest. However, Nicola Putignano already set a new oxygen static of 19:02 minutes during a TV show in Italy in may this year. You can find more about his record here, and a video of the tv show here. This record is probably still in the big ratification queue at Guinness, but as there was a Guinness official present during the Italian TV show, my guess is that Nicola record is the real deal.

Still 18:32 minutes is a big number and because she already did it twice (also in training), my guess is that she’s capable of breaking the 19 minute barrier as well. Below the video of the attempt.

Wellington Winter Champs – Day 2

Jorg — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 20:09:49 +0000

And the results of day 2 are in. Another bunch of great performances are added to the results of day 1. And as a short add-on; Mullins his 232 meter without fins performance yesterday took him 4:30 minutes to complete.

Guy Brew increased his dynamic personal best to 226m, while four other competitors did dynamics over 150m. Kathryn McPhee reclaimed her dynamic national record with a 191m dive.

Wellington Winter Champs – Day 1

Jorg — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:02:53 +0000

This weekend there is the Wellington Winter Champs in New Zealand. It consists of a 2 day pool competition and as you know I normally post results about weekend competition when they are over. But when results like this are already being done on day 1, it is for sure interesting to have a look what is going on over there.

Dave Mullins

5 national records! And if the correct type of judge was present the competition would have world record status and we would have 2 new world records as well. Dave Mullins improved the current world record in dynamic without fins with 18 meter to 232 meters. Kathryn McPhee did a 152 meter dynamic without fins, breaking her own world record by 1 meter. Guy Brew set a new national record in Static with a big 9:03 breath hold, which is the longest ever in competition.

All in all amazing results already in this competition. I’m curious what day 2 will bring. And it’s good to see Suzy Osler (formerly known as Kensignton) back into action! Bring on day 2! Press release about day 1 below.

An astonishing day first up, with five national records and some huge dives. Guy Brew kicked things off with a massive 9:03 static, with Dave Mullins doing a 232m no fins dynamic; 18m more than his current world record! Kathryn McPhee followed up with a 152m dive, pushing her national record out to 1m more than her world record, then Ruth Griffin and Suzy Osler both chimed in with dynamic records for their respective countries; with 164m for Britain and 188m for New Zealand. Phil Clayton also missed out on a British dynamics record when he blacked out at 191m.

Conratulations to all the divers, there were impressive performances across the board. Also a big congrats to our recreational grade divers: Darrell, Joy, Sam and Graham!

Results: RAB Dive Off 2009

Jorg — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:57:44 +0000

Last weekend was time for the RAB Dive Off 2009 competition on the island Rab in Croatia. 20 freedivers from 5 countries joined the competition to test themselves into the deep.

In Free Immersion Vedrana Vidovic and Natasa Stipanov, both from Croatia, both dived to 45 meters and won with the women. With the men Goran Colak from Croatia did a 76 meter dive.

In the constant weight discipline Jarmila Slovencikova from the Czech republic did a 52 meter dive and was the clear winner with the women. There were 3 winners with the men who dived all to 80 meters; Jire Daic (SLOV), Jan Honysch (CZE) and Martin Zajac (SVK)

In constant without fins Jarnmila was also the wwinner with a 47 meter dive. And the two winners with a 58 meter dive were Jure Daic and Michal Risian.

Looked like a good and fun competition! Congrats to all the winners. Results below.

AIDA Czech Republic and Ukraine select national team

Jorg — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:43:29 +0000

Women:

1. Zharkova Natalie (Kharkiv)

2. Almazova Anna (Kiev)

Men

1. Alexey Sokolov

2. Paul Morozov

3. Spartak Golovach

4. Dmitry Zholud

AIDA Ukraine

AIDA Czech Republic

Jana Oujezdská

Jarca Slovencíková

Jana Škrobová

Alena Zabloudilová

Jan Honysch

Martin Petrisko

Ivo Truxa

Another two AIDA national have selected their national team for the upcoming pool world championships in Denmark. This time it’s AIDA Czech Republic and AIDA Ukraine.

I hope that Google translated the Ukraine names correctly, otherwise let me know.

(Thanks go to Ivo Truxa for providing this news and tweeting it to me. And congrats to Ivo for making it into the team!)

AIDA Ukraine

Women:

Zharkova Natalie (Kharkiv)
Almazova Anna (Kiev)

Men

Alexey Sokolov
Paul Morozov
Spartak Golovach
Dmitry Zholud

AIDA Czech Republic

Women

Jana Oujezdská
Jarca Slovencíková
Jana Škrobová
Alena Zabloudilová

Men

Jan Honysch
Martin Petrisko
Ivo Truxa