As I’m way to busy with some major upgrades to the website this weekend, I’ll make it a quick one today with some nice video’s. During the x-bbh competition in Dahab, Norway got 3 new national records. CWT 77 by Bjarte Nygard, CNF 54m by Steinar Schjagerand FIM 58m also by Steinar, which looked more like CNF.
With a dive to 123 meters in the discipline constant weight, Herbert Nitsch reclaims the world record in this discipline. With a dive time of 4:00 minutes and a surface protocol done within 6.5 seconds it seems there is more to come!
Okay, I must say I just love these Sara Campbell press releases. The only other people I know who do this so professionally are Performance Freediving International. Some good PR is always great to see! Congrats to Sara and I guess we will see some record attempt pretty soon…
5th December 2009 : - Sara Campbell, the 37 year old World Champion freediver, who set a World Record of 96m in breathhold diving in April this year, has today taken Silver for Britain in the AIDA Freediving World Championships, being held at Dean’s Blue Hole, Long Island in the Bahamas.
Campbell, who has held four World Records in her relatively short career, three of which she set in under 48 hours just nine months after taking up the sport, is one of only two women in the world capable of diving beyond 90m. The sport of freediving requires the athlete to hold their breath, while self-propelling themselves to extreme depths, causing their lung tissues to fill with blood to prevent them from imploding under pressure.
On exiting the water Sara said: “That was an amazing dive, extremely easy for me and I kind of wish I’d announced deeper for a Record. The same dive normally takes me over 20 seconds longer than today. It’s incredibly motivating looking forward and I’m looking forward to challenging for the World Record again in the near future.”
The Freediving World Championships attracts the world’s top divers in this extreme sport. Sara’s medal today was the result of months of hard work and training:
“I have been training to these depths and beyond all summer. It is an extremely intense sport – rarely do we ask our body to perform to its absolute limits of survival, but I do it on almost a daily basis in order to increase my performance potential,” said Sara.
Sara’s achievements this year have been astounding; in April this year, less than a year after the death of her mother, Sara set a new World Record of 96m, also in the Bahamas. Since then she has twice attempted and both times narrowly faiild, to achieve the 100m mark.
“I have now made some big changes in my dives and training and feel confident that I could do 100m now. However this competition isn’t about records for me, it’s about the medals, and of course being with so many top-level athletes. Because we know what we each go through to train and make these dives, there is a very deep bond between us all. It feels like one big, maybe slightly crazy, family,” said Sara.
It’s all over and the champions are now known! Everybody did an excellent job in the finals.
With the women Natalia Molchanova from Russia took the gold with an excellent 97 meter dive. Sara Campbell from the UK got Silver with a 92 meter dive. These two women are a class apart. Diving around 20 meters then the rest of the women. Big respect. Jarmila Slovencikova from the Czech Republic got bronze with a nice 74 meter dive, which was also a new national record.
Four new national records with the men. Herbert beat them all with a 114 meter dive. Seconds was Alexey Molchanov who did a 111 meter dip under the water. Bronze was shared between William Trubridge and Carlos Coste. Amazing dives over there.
In the last minute there was protest made by Carlos and William against Alexey. Apperantly they thought there was something wrong with Alexey’s surface protocol and that he left out an okay sign. In the end the protest was overruled and Alexey’s dive kept the silver medal. I’m wondering why they protested. Video’s will show up in the next days, so that we can see for ourselves what went on.
Great championships with great results! Looked like it was one of the best organized championships ever. Great job to the whole event team.
Yesterday some of the deepest men and women in the world (and I’m sure we’re not talking purely about diving here 
tested their mettle in the most technically and physically demanding deep constant weight discipline – No Fins. With so many black-outs in the women’s heats, every single woman with a white card had got through, but this didn’t mean that the divers were now complacent and resting on their laurels. It meant we had an amazing four National and one World Record announced, the only one not, being Olga Suryakova, who has the unfortunate coincidence of having the same nationality as Nathalia Molchanova, who’d announced a World Record. Given the number of ‘casualties’ in the heats, and the obviously ambitious depths all divers had announced, I think everyone, particularly the safety divers were expecting a lively time again. However, we got it totally wrong – six white cards out of six, giving Natalia a new World Record of 62m. Any woman hoping to challenge her had better hurry up before she gets too deep!
But having said that, it’s an awesome dive (having had my first ever black-out attempting 60m CNF, I most certainly know!) but looking at the start list which was a COMBINED mens and womens finals, one could have been forgiven for thinking it was two separate competitions – even Natalia was shallower, by some thirteen metres, than the shallowest qualifying male! Come on girls – let’s try and catch up with those men!
But credit where credit is most certainly due; the records and medals: Brigitte Banegas of France set a new National Record of 50m – apparently she’s only been training for a few months and it’s only equalisation that’s stopping her going deeper. She looks fit and very strong, so hopefully we’ll see much deeper dives from her in the future. Next was Junko Kitahama of Japan setting a nice Record for her country with 52m, and already we’re into the medals; Bronze went to Jana Strain, with a Canadian, Pan-American AND Continental Record, I believe, of 54m to boot – oh and she also had a birthday yesterday! A very, very happy one for her, I’m sure. Silver went to Niki Roderick of New Zealand with a National Record of 55m – she is here and being trained by her boyfriend, that little-known freediver, Martin Stepanek. Apparently she’s done very close to that depth in competition a few times so it was a comfortable announcement for her first World Championships – hopefully with more experience and confidence under her (very low weight) belt, she’ll be giving Natalia something to reckon with in the future. And last but so very not least was Natalia herself, with a stonkingly easy dive of 62m, which apparently she hadn’t yet reached in training. Gold and a new World Record to Russia!!!
And dropping the line another 13 metres, we are into the men’s finals. The French ‘team’ were up first with Christian Maldame, Morgan Bourc’his and Guillaume Nery announcing – and achieving – 75m, 76m and 78m respectively! Not only great diving but what appears like great support and cameraderie from the team, all working together for the best results. Guillaume, who set the World Record of 113m in Constant Weight last year, decided to focus on No Fins after the intensity of that experience, and found that not only did he love and excel in diving Unassisted, but that it also made his Constant Weight dives feel easier (well, erm, duh, as he himself said, ‘it’s like covering the same distance running or riding a bike!’). So William T was getting nervous as Guillaume arrived in Deans Blue Hole, but it wasn’t to be. He was one of many divers who found the conditions here strangely difficult to deal with – equalisation and mouthfill problems, unexpected black-outs, that kind of thing – and so in the end had to be content with a National Record. Which, it must be noted he stole not from himself, but from Morgan with his 76m dive, just a few minutes earlier!
Alexey was back – and so were his black-outs. An ambitious National Record attempt of 83m ended on the surface with a tiny black-out (again screams of ‘reshie, reshie’ – or something like that – from the Russian contigent, which we now ALL know means ‘breathe, breathe’!). Very sad, but he was fine and still has the Constant Weight finals to look forward to.
Will Winram, the freediver-cum-comedian from Canada, who last year dived for France, but this year has switched back to Canada, announced 86m, which everyone knows is well within his capacity but for some reason, the last two years, Will has been haunted by demons at depth, developing a habit of turning early. No longer so! Steaming to the plate, where he claims he was ‘so f***ing narked’ that he grabbed the light instead of the tag – twice – he then had an easy, happy, totally off his head ride to the surface where, still apparently narked, he performed a faultless surface protocol and was the second Canadian of the day to do the whole National, Pan-American, Continental record thing!
Not so for Herbert – a massive 89m dive from the man who held the World Record in this, his least favourite of disciplines, in fact probably least favourite thing in the world. But with his breathhold and his nerves of steel – and even with his most HORRIBLE technique – if anyone can, Herbert can! I was coaching him and all was looking good. As he approached the surface he looked a little weak, but then again it’s Herbert’s trademark to ascend as slowly as possible in the final few metres to avoid DCS. On the surface he removed his facial equipment, gave the OK sign and then stopped. I can’t tell you what was racing through my mind…. ‘he’s OK, he’s just getting his breath’, ‘ no, he’s on the edge and doesn’t know what he’s doing’, ‘no, it’s OK, he has plenty of ti….’. ‘SAY ‘I’M OK’, Herbert!,’ I yelled at him. My second guess he been right – he was absolutely on the edge. Not so far that he didn’t hear or couldn’t react to my yells, but enough that when he did react he forgot that he’d given the OK sign – and gave it again and was thereby DQed! Man, I was gutted. Grant was gutted, Everyone was gutted. It’s rare to see Herbert mess up like that (he much prefers packing black-outs!) and I’ve been running it through my head – could I have prevented it in any way? I’m not sure… One positive thing – for Herbert anyway, is that he’s ‘never going to do this f***ing discipline EVER again.’ I guess that might make Will T happy too 
Talking of which – yes, he did it. Rumours are that he’s done MUCH deeper in training, so we suspect it was an easy dive. But Will’s a secretive man so only he and his closest buddies, and I presume, wife, Brittany, will know. But respect to the man! He did a 90m WR CNF dive, pulled the whole competition together, made it happen, brought 50-something athletes, plus judges, safety team, videographers and more to the Blue Hole here in the Bahamas. And no doubt will be cranking out World Records approaching the 100′s in the near future.
So, mens final tally was Gold to Trubridge, Silver to Winram and a surprising Bronze to Nery! I watched most of it from the beach, reporting the news on camera, got my first sunburn and had a thoroughly enjoyable day.
Resting today and up tomorrow for the Constant Weight finals. What can I say – I’m HUGELY surprised by Natalia’s announcement – has she ever NOT announced a World Record??? This could be a first!!! I decided to play it safe and dive to the bottom of ‘my’ Blue Hole in Dahab which I’ve done often in training. I feel confident that, with the changes I’ve made recently that I could do 100m and probably challenge Natalia for + 100m dives in the not too distant future, but this competition is about medals more than records and, presuming she would be diving deeper than my comfort zone, I chose a ‘safe’ dive (blimey, I’d better not black-out now, after having said that!!! It’s unlikely that she’ll falter on a 97m dive, unless she’s not feeling 100%…. so, all going well, I’m looking at Silver tomorrow. Jarmila, Klara and Misuzu are fighting it out for Bronze with 74, 73 and 72m announcements respectively. But of course things can change at any moment and we could see Olga Suryakova, who has stealthily and consistently worked her way into both finals against all odds, make a medal with a 63m dive!
As for the men, well, some BIG announcements. No surprises there, they all did +100m just to qualify. Johan Dahlstrom is up first with 101m – he so narrowly missed 100m in points in the heats by losing the tag on the way up. He was also pretty narked, or on the edge at the surface, doing the full surface protocol twice, so it’s anyone’s guess… Then the platform workers have to drop the line a full eight metres for the next diver as we hit the top five, all of whom have each held World Records in at least one of the six competitive disciplines; Guillaume will dive 109m, four metres off his former World Record, Carlos 110m (on a competition PB of 105m!!!), Will T has also announced 110m, Alexey is aiming for a massive 111m (all or bust, I suspect!), and Herbert, as usual, brings up the rear (phnarrr, phnarrr) with his penultimate World Record depth of 114m, which he did easily here in April this year.
It’s be a thrilling, literally breath-taking day tomorrow!
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:
All the men just announced their performances for tomorrow. Constant Weight is on the program and there are 7 who have subscribed for 3 digit depth. Wow!
I’m most excited about Carlos Coste who is going for 104 meters. It’s very good to see him back in the game with such a dive and I really hope he will make it. Carlos had a hard time after his accident and has really fought back. Big respect for the Venezuelan freediver!
Some wild guessing is also fun, so here is a wild one: William Winram does 80 meters in the series in constant no fins. He did a very stealthy training before the comp and nobody knows how deep he can go, but my guess is he has trained very very hard on constant without fins. for constant weight he subscribes only a depth 6 meters deeper the his without fins dive. Maybe he will do his dive tomorrow without fins, for two reasons: training and psychological ‘damn’ effect so that some other freedivers are going to subscribe deeper for the CNF finals then they actually can.
Maybe there are also some other freedivers going to attempt another without fins dive tomorrow. There is nothing in the rules that forbids doing a CNF during a CWT competition. Anyway, it will be an interesting day. Good luck to everybody!
Today it was time for the women and their constant weight with fins dive. And fortunatly it went much better then the without version for the women. No blackouts!
Kathryn McPhee didn’t start today. She was already feeling somewhat sick and it hasn’t improved. Too bad for her. I don’t think this is the result she had expected from her trip to the Bahamas.
All in all, it makes an nice final list with Natalia at the top of the list for now. Sara Campbell, Misuzu Hirai, Jarmila Slovencikova, Klara Hansson and Olga Suryakova are the rest on the list for the finals on Saturday.
As I’m in a hurry, I have to make it a quicky. Below the announced performances for the women in the discipline constant weight with fins. If you look at the list you can see that Natalia Molchanova over-estimated a little bit what she had to do to get in the finals. 15 meters deeper then Sara Campbell, who announced the second deepest dive with 70 meters.
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