Shark Freediving

So, Constant Weight, the deep one, has started and finished. The women’s field is an interesting one. With former world record holders and contenders (I’m thinking of Annelie Pompe currently attempting a double 8000m ASCENT in the Himalayas – she’s going up now, not down!, Mandy-Rae Cruickshank who played a crucial part in the expose of the dolphin slaughter in Taiji, Japan, in The Cove, Linda Paganelli who prefers to organise and safety these days, and apologies to any other deep females I have left off this list!) either no longer competing, or simply not here, the opportunities for divers in the 60s and 70s to get into the finals and come home with a medal are pretty exciting this year. Of course personal bests (PBs) remain secret for many of the divers, but as far as I know, only Jarmila and Kathryn have dived below 70 in CWT recently, leaving a yawning gap of at least 20m before the next deepest competitors reach my former world record of 96m and of course Natalia’s dive of 101m!

So, how did it go? Kathryn, after her black-out and squeeze in No Fins announced what she said was a conservative 66m (so how deep has she been recently then? I suspect she’s made some impressive advances – hurrah!) but her suspicion that the black-out was caused by the on-set of illness was correct as she turned up to the event committee the night before, barely able to speak and sounding very mucousy. God, I feel so bad for her, she’s had such a rubbish comp after such a long time of preparation and dedication to her training – she really deserved to go home with not just one medal, but two! I admire her positive attitude though, and she’s turning up and cheering everyone on. So, she was a no-starter, or DNS as we call them (did not start).

I think the other major casualty of the day – no, it wasn’t a black-out – none of those in CWT after a hectic No Fins day! – was Junko. As seventh deepest woman, she stood a good chance of getting through to the finals if one of the deeper athletes should falter, as did happen. Unfortunately she was DQed, according to the results list for her surface protocol, but I heard that she got water in her mouth, or mask, or both and so am not sure exactly what happened, but it’s certainly sad to see her go out – you can’t beat a Junko smile after a successful dive!!!

The only other athlete to go out was Jana Strain. I stated in my report on the CNF dives that we saw a ‘predictably strong performance’ from her there, and I’d been expecting the same in Constant. Little did I know that she’d been struggling with equalisation and such was the case yesterday. Jana went out with an early turn which put her out of the top six.

So, happy stories of the day. It was the first time I’d seen either of the other Japanese women dive, and in particular Misuzu Hirai gave a spectacularly strong performance of 66m, looking as fresh and strong as if she’d just done 20m – so she’s clearly looking to take the National Record from Tomoko and go much deeper in the finals. Jarmila was through easily also, which made me happy (after our dives we went and swam with the massive tarpon – fish which live just beneath the rim of the Blue Hole at around 20m – her theory is that they hide behind the sand dripping gently off the lip, believing they can watch the competition in peace and that we can’t see them. Despite their size, they’re harmless, gentle giants, some easily as big as me!!!), also Klara Hansson – hurrah – made a clean dive after her sad exit from No Fins, and the three deeper casualties meant that Olga Suryakova, who I’m sure didn’t expect to find herself in either final, is now in both! Oh, and I barely need to mention that Natalia made a clean and easy dive, as did I

The men’s competition promised excitement pure – with at least six men with ranked dives over 100m, that meant to qualify every man HAD to announce over 100m. So the start list had some BIG numbers in it – Johan Dahlstrom of Sweden attempting 100m again – his strategy, just to do 100m whether it got him through or not, and in fact, he said he’d prefer not to get through so that he could start training No Fins and do some spearfishing with the sweet knowledge of being the 11th man to join the 100 Club). Ryuzo announced 101m, there were three diving to 102m – Guillaume Nery, Alexey Molchanov and Will Trubridge, Carlos Coste announced 1m short of his PB of 105m and Herbert, of course, was last up with 105m.

However, back to the early stages of the comp. There were six early turns, a surprisingly high number, I feel, and also one tactical ‘no tag’ yellow card from William Trubridge who knew that on the depth gauge and one penalty point, he was through anyway. Johan also came up with no tag despite having grabbed it and it was felt that he would be given the dive on the judges viewing the camera and finally claim his 100m. However I just learned something new… it has been verified that no white tag equals minus one point, no matter what is on the bottom camera, so he remains with 99 points, but 100m on his gauge (although if it’s a D4 it will just give him a flatline – which I have to say, from experience, is also quite a satisfying feeling – to know that you can dive deeper than the computer can measure

But I keep jumping ahead…. Four National Records for the men; first for Spain with a 70m dive for Alfredo Roen, meaning the Spanish have completed their comp and were looking very happy and relaxed on the beach and I kept hearing the words ‘fiesta’ and ‘cerveza’ so we may not be seeing quite so much of them in the water from now on! Next was Rob King, who I was coaching. Despite announcing 84m, a dive which normally falls into the second half of the start list, he was in the first group due to all the massive announcements and the early start had shaken him slightly. Despite that, he did a beautiful dive, white card, and a National and joint Pan-American Record (shared with flatmate Will Winram) to boot. Unfortunately also a small squeeze, which he said felt like the biggest he’d had. But the comp is over for him so he can relax and enjoy being a spectator! Next National Record was from Jure Daic from Slovenia and again he made his dive look like there’s a lot more to come from him – this time a mere 90m! Finally was Jakob Hanson (or as I’ve just found out from studying the results list, his real name is Neils-Jakob – kind of makes coaching him a bit of a mouthfull – ‘BREATHE NEILS-JAKOB, BREATHE NIELS-JAKOB’) with a perfect 92m. Congrats to all of them.

I guess I can’t get away without mentioning the big downer of the comp – Patrick Poggi of France did the fastest 90m anyone had ever seen (according to Sebastian and his running commentary!), but unfortunately he burned up all of his energy too early on and it was lights out for him around 10m. He was brought to the surface quickly, safely and efficiently but remained in his dreamland for quite a while, breathing shallowly on the platform and clearly not focusing on anything around him. However, as soon as he received oxygen, he was back and seemed to enjoy the rest of the day, although I’m sure, seeing as he doesn’t do No Fins, he was disappointed to leave the competition with no official result.

There were a few other squeezes – Shun Oshima from Japan had quite a chunky one but still managed a good 85m dive, which a slightly wonky surface protocol which just managed to get him through. Sadly Per Westin hadn’t managed to get over his equalisation challenges – having done great 92m dives with me in Dahab before flying out here, he found himself frustratingly stuck in the mid-80s in Deans Blue Hole and didn’t manage to break the spell for the competition either – what a shame!

Other than that, the main excitement of the final round with the 100m men, turned out to be a little bit predictable, as most of them have dived considerably deeper than their announcements. Apart from Ryuzo, who with a film crew in tow, bows out of the comp, all men gave shiningly brilliant and easy performances. Oh, to have their legs!!! Alexey was over his black-outs and near misses at the surface but I think the highpoint for me, in terms of real happiness and joy, was seeing Gaby’s (judge and over 10 year girlfriend of Carlos) relief and excitement for him as he got his white card. It was a truly warm, fuzzy moment.

Tonight we’re all off out to celebrate the end of the heats. In terms of the finals, the rankings are as follows: