Shark Freediving

Last June 23th and 24th there was a new edition of the DIVE GAMES, which took place in Porto Alegre, south of Brazil. This is the fourth year this SCUBA games competition takes place, but this year was the first time they put it together with a freediving competition, organized by AIDA Brazil. It was a good mix between scuba divers and freedivers, and there were some very good performances in the freediving competition.

The static was won by Ricardo Bahia, from Rio de Janeiro with 6:41, 2nd Warley de Souza with a PB of 5:21 and Argentinean Agustin Di Francisco (Apnea Patagonia’s student) 3rd with 5:00. With the women, Karol shows us hat she’s still one of the best freedivers in the world and did a clear 6:45 static.

In the discipline dynamic with fins the Argentinean Agustin made a new national record diving 150 meters, followed by Ricardo Bahia, 142 meters, and Germano Viegas, 135 meters. Karol did 131 meters and a new south American record.

The surprise came with DNF, were the Argentinean Di Francisco (best rookie 2006) is a specialist. He announced 101 meters and he had told me before travelling that he was thinking he can beat Will Winram’s American record, but his PB was 125mts. Well, Agustin did it! 155 meters for a new pan-American record. Anyway, by now he’s in the top in the world ranking list (at least for a few days, now that the WC is starting) He was followed by Ricardo Bahia with a national record of 103 meters and Hugo Duppre diving 79 meters.
Karol Meyer did a new National record in DNF with 100 meters.

Well, south American freedivers are growing up, it’s a shame that freedivers as Agustin Di Francisco, Ricardo Bahia (7:44 PB) or Karoline Meyer can’t be in Maribor due to exchange rate (high costs) may be in a short time a World Championship could be run in South America (Venezuela? Brazil?). So a big amount of freedivers that cannot participate in the most of the big events may have the opportunity to gain experience.

By now, Karol wrote to me that she’s going to Sharm to de WC. I know she’s training a lot, and many people will talk about her in Sharm, may be some surprises in CNF (She was training with William Trubridge during his World Record, she was one of the judges and learned a lot)

Complete results of the competition can be found in the left picture, just click it. More photo’s can be found here and here.

On Saturday May 26th the Individual Apnea National Championships of Venezuela took place in Caracas, Venezuela. This AIDA ranked competition was filled with about 40 athletes from different places in Venezuela and an Argentinian guest, Walter Svajelg. They competed this day in static and one of the two dynamic disciplines, as preferred by the athlete.

It was good to see a returning familiar face to this competition, especially after his accident of last year; Carlos Coste won the static discipline with an easy 6:18 minutes without wet suit! 2nd place winner was Lorenzo Hidalgo with 5:35 min and in the 3rd place the Argentinian rookie, Walter Svajelg with 5:21 min. With the women the first place was for Karla Mendez with a time of 4:40 min. 2nd place for Ambar Peralta with 4:15 and in the 3rd place Iru Balic with 3:59.

In the evening the Venezuelan freedivers showed their strength in the dynamic with fins discipline. The competition was won by Miguel Hernandez, equaling William Winram’s pan American record of 174 meters. 2nd place to Lorenzo Hidalgo, diving 158 mts and in the 3rd place Luis Arismendi, 130 meters. There were two DQ for not being able to complete the Surface Protocol, Carlos Coste at 152 meters and Antonio Del Luca at 160 meters. Nevertheless great performances! With the women, Ambar Peralta dived 126 meters to win the comp. 2nd place to Karla Mendez, 119 meters and Iru Balic in 3rd place, 117 meters.

In dynamic without fins first place was for Luis Arismendi with 96 meters. 2nd place was for Jesus Carrera with 76 meters and in 3rd place was Adrian Suarez with 75 meters. There were only two women in this discipline, first place to Dioana Arismendi with 77 meters and 2nd place to Monica Ruiz, 72 meters.

The three first in each category classify automatically to participate in the individual world championship that will take place in Maribor, Slovenia. Judges on site were Gabriela Contreras, Cesar Maza and Ramon Colmenares and the photo of Carlos was made by Gabriela Contreras.

This article is written by our new contributor Alejandro Andres. Alejandro is an AIDA instructor in the Patagonia region in Argentina and runs successfully his own freediving school “Apnea Patagonia”. Alejandro is the first of some new contributors to this site who offered their help for expanding our news and article base so that freediving news from all over the world can be covered correctly.

Update: Just to get the facts straight. The pan American record is not 174 but already increased by William Winram to 179 meters during the Mad Cup 2007.