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!
It’s all over and the champions are now known! Everybody did an excellent job in the finals.
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