Archive for the ‘Free Diving’ Category

First off, and before we even tell you what’s going on in Denmark, we must first congratulate Stefan Mifsud for his outstanding static  record breaking achievement on 8th June, 2009. 11 minutes and 35 seconds under-water. He must have gills instead of lungs!

	11 minuts and 35 seconds That is the New World Record in Static Stéphan MIFSUD, France  Hyeres, 8th June

Just imagine sitting stationary underwater for 11 minutes and 35 seconds. Quite incredible… Tom Sietas of Germany held the previous record of 10 mins. 12 secs. – in itself incredible.

Back to Denmark…

The Danish Sport Diving Federation – in collaboration with Sport Event Denmark and Sport Århus Events – are hosting the Free Diving Indoor World Championships in Denmark.

Århus hosts one of the world’s best freediving clubs, The Århus Freediving Club, and is the home city of one of the world’s best freedivers, Stig Åvall Severinsen, so it is an obvious place for the event.

The championship began on the 17^th August and ends on the 22^nd in the Århus Svømme (Swim) Stadium and the divers will compete in the individual World Championships in the following pool disciplines:

• Dynamic with fins (DYN, swim as long as possible with fins, under water, in one breath)
• Dynamic without fins (DNF, swim as long as possible without fins, under water, in one breath)
• Static (STA, keep your breath as long as possible under water)

This is where the action is taking place, with thanks to  strandridder80
for the video. It is quite mesmerising. We will keep you updated with this competition…

Denmark will be hosting the next big freediving competition in August. It is worth remembering that this is an extreme sport on the fringe of mainstream sports, but with dedicated participants and supporters.

A really dedicated following because there is minimal sponsorship and divers do not recieve any funding. This means every dive, every competition is funded by their own hard work, dedication and love of the sport.

The indoor freediving world championships will be held in the town of Aarhus in Denmark from the 17th – 22nd August.

That means freedivers will be working their butts off (excuse the expression) to get there.

AIDA Germany has announced the following people as the official German Team:

• Women: Barbara Jeschke, Ilka Michaelis, Anna v. Boetticher and Olga Martinez-Alvarez
• Men: Martin Legat, Ulli Wulf and Sergio Martinez-Alvare

AIDA Canada is also on their way for selecting the pool championship team. It’s still small and has open spots:

Women: Jana Strain, Mandy-Rae Krack
Men: William Winram

Team New Zealand held a competition in mid-May to see who would be chosen to represent the country at the upcoming indoor world champs – they are still waiting on the selection to be confirmed, but in the meantime have come up with a novel idea to raise funds to help with the costs, and for $250.00 you can be the proud owner of this:

A swimming cap signed by 4 of the world’s top freedivers:

William Trubridge
William has broken freediving world records 7 times. His 2008 no 1 world rankings were in Constant weight without fins with -86m and Free Immersion with -108m, both of which were world records. On 10th April 2009 he did it again bettering his own mark in the discipline CNF (Constant Weight No Fins) with a dive to 88 meters (288 feet) in 3′30″.

Dave Mullins
Dave has broken 4 freediving world records and set a spearfishing world record with biggest marlin. Last year he ranked world no 1 in dynamics without fins with 213m and constant weight with -108m. He also was 2nd in dynamics with his world record dive of 248m and 3rd in static apnea with a breath hold time of 8 minutes, 11s.

Kathryn McPhee
Kathryn set her first world record and was ranked 1st woman in 2008 in dynamics without fins with 151m. She also ranked no 2 in dynamics with 179m and statics with a breath hold time of 7 minutes 1s.

Guy Brew
Guy has the second biggest breath hold time ever in competition. He topped the 2008 world rankings with a huge static apnea of 8 minutes 31s.

There is an added incentive to winning the auction (ie: paying over $250). If you, too, would like to learn how to freedive and live anywhere in the vicinity of Wellington or could get to Denmark over those dates in August, Kathryn McPhee will throw in a free one hour coaching session to suit your level.

Closes: Sat 6 Jun, 7:34 pm. This auction may auto-extend.

Please read the questions and answers for this auction.

You may well remember that I did several articles on the Vertical Blue Invitational Freediving Competition in Dean’s Blue Hole, Long Island, Bahamas last month….

I thought I’d round the series off with this video from W.T. (williamtrubridge) of his unassisted record breaking Freedive of 88m (288ft) in 3 minutes 30 seconds.

Spectacular, isn’t it.

At 11:20am in Dean’s Blue Hole, Bahamas New Zealand freediver William Trubridge broke the world record in unassisted freediving, descending 88 meters (288 feet) and returning to the surface on a single breath of air and without the use of any weight or propulsive assistance.

The dive took place as part of Vertical Blue 2009, an invitational freediving event where the world’s elite freedivers compete over nine days of diving. Already in the competition three world records had been broken by British Sara Campbell and Austrian Herbert Nitsch, but this was the first to be set by a New Zealander in the event.

William Trubridge has been training as a freediver for the last 6 years, and in April of 2007 he set his first world record in this discipline, with 82m. The same year the record was broken with 83m by Herbert Nitsch, widely considered the world’s greatest freediver, but William bettered it again in 2008, with 86m. Herbert attempted the record on the sixth day of this event, but turned early at 71m. William also attempted 88m on the 4th day of the event, and although he made the depth and returned to the surface he blacked out as he took his first breath, and was thus disqualified.

William admits that there was a lot of anticipation and anxiety when he entered the water for another attempt at the record this morning, but he managed to remain calm and finished the dive in 3 minutes and 30 seconds, returning to the surface completely lucid.

He said that this result is the product of years of intensive training, and the support of his sponsors Suunto, Extreme Drinks and Orca and a generous scholarship from AMP.

News and photos from Vertical Blue 2009 can be found at http://www.verticalblue.net/news

If you want to see or find out more about William Trubridge, please go to:
info@verticalblue.net

“It always astounds me that in freediving the people, your fellow competitors (when in comp) care about everyone else so much, they just want everyone to do their best, feel safe and realize each and everyones own potential, it makes for a very very different sporting environment.” Kerian Hibbs.

The Vertical Blue 2009 competition at Dean’s Blue Hole in the Bahamas is well underway. Many personal bests have been reached and four national records were broken yesterday from Frank Pernett, Megumi Matsumoto, Tomoko Yamanouchi (her first) and Walter Steyn.

A quick reminder of the records that the competitors are trying to beat:

Male constant weight – 113m – Guillaume Nery
Male no fins – 86m – William Trubridge
Male free immersion – 108m – William Trubridge
Female constant weight – 95m – Natalia Molchanova
Female no fins – 60m – Natalia Molchanova
Female free immersion – 85m – Natalia Molchanova

And the current situation at the Blue Hole:

Kathryn McPhee had a personal best in no fins of 52m

Walter Steyn with a pb and Aussie national record of 95m in 2 mins 49 seconds.

William Trubridge showed some great form with a 107m CWT dive.

Sara Campbell had the most amazing dive. She became the first woman to dive to 100m in competition. However, sadly she blacked out very briefly when surfacing and even though she came round laughing and proudly brandishing the 100m tag, she did not complete surface protocol and so will have to have another shot at it.

Davide Carrera (above) made his 4th national record of the competition, with 98m in constant weight. He is running out of whole numbers in the 90’s now, and his Italian supporters are begging him to announce something with 3 digits.

The star of day 5 was Herbert Nitsch (below being filmed by Dan Burton with a 3D camera), who claimed his second world record, this time in Free Immersion with 109m, breaking the 108m record set by William Trubridge at Vertical Blue 2008.

With thanks to William Trubridge for allowing me to use their wonderful photographs.

Kerian Hibbs, who is right at this moment attempting to break a record or two at Dean’s Blue Hole in the Bahama’s has been trying to break down the mystic of freediving for me – and I could have had no better instructor. At this rate I might just have to take up the sport myself…

As you know, the divers arrived several days, if not weeks, before the competition began, to acclimatise to the new environment.

The whole idea of diving to unknown depths without the aid of scuba equipment will seem very strange and extremely dangerous to many people. But these guys know what they’re doing, and I am going to give you a breakdown of a dive, as told to me by Kerian.

This 60m dive took place in the run-up to the competition at Dean’s Blue Hole.

You will see from the graph that the descent is pretty steep (1.25m /second) which is way, way too fast and meant that he had problems equalizing.

The ascent was, in comparison, way way too slow (around 0.8m/second).

However, this was are not a reflection of carrying too many weights, but more of laziness and no sense of urgency to reach the surface on shallow dives….

… it might amuse you to know that he now considers anything less than 60 m a shallow dive!

You can see by the curve at the bottom that he had to put in a few good kicks to get going, then at around -40 m he started to cruise – going a lot slower, conserving energy and just enjoying the sensation of the weight falling off.

It is hard to imagine diving to great depths without any artificial aids. Yesterday we did an article on Nuno Gomez who went down to 318 m+ – but with a serious rack of gas tanks on his back. Seriously extreme…

However, to do this with no aid except the confidence to rely on your lungs, your training, your overall fitness, is an extroadinary achievement. As Kerian says: “I guess at the end of the day, everyone knows that when it comes to FreeDiving, the competition is not with others, but within yourself, testing the limits of your own body, exploring the limits of the mind and trusting in the people around you. Thats what makes FreeDiving such a special sport.”

The competition began on 1st April. It ends on the 11th. So far Kerian has had a personal best of a 78m dive.