Shark Freediving

To be fair, I waited one more day to publish this news. Yesterday afternoon news came out that Stig Severinsen from Denmark set a new O2 static world record by holding is breath for 20 minutes and 10 seconds. I guess it’s just not a good day to do something like that on April fools day and doing a time that is  similar to the year we live in.

But now that  the record is confirmed on April 2nd I thought it was time to announce it to the world. Stig did his record at the Kattegat Centre in Grenaa, Denmark. 4 AIDA judges were present and a notary from the  Guinness Book of World Records.

Before he started his breath hold, Stig took 12 minutes of pure oxygen before the dive. Everything went pretty easy, just after 15 minutes were his contractions started. He managed to end it with an amazing time of 20:10 minutes.

In the press release they claim that it is the first ever O2 breath hold over 20 minutes, but that is not exactly correct. Several other people already went over this limit, including David Blaine who did a 20:03 minute O2 breath hold in May 2008 during his trainings before the Oprah Winfrey show where he did 17:04.

To be honest I think these kind of records are crap. Just a circus act that brings media attention. This is sports on steroids, but nobody seems to get that. Yes, of course you can hold your breath longer when you prepare with pure oxygen.

For sure this will go wrong in the near future with some people who will do this in a wrong way. And I just don’t like to call this freediving. Bravo to the people who can earn their money with it and get the media attention from it, but in the end this is not a real athletic performance.

The thing is that Stig has already proven himself to be an exceptional freediver, who I greatly admire. And in the end I think that even Stig himself is more proud about his world championship gold medals then this Guinness record.

Too bad the crowd and media doesn’t see the difference when somebody does a 9 minute static during a regular freediving competition or a 20 minute static on pure oxygen. It’s all about the numbers.

Below a nice short video from Stig his record and more info on Stig his new website: www.Breatheology.com

Peter Colat

Today Peter Colat from Swisterland has broken the current Guinness record of a oxygen enriched breath hold. He held his breath for a total time of 19:21 minutes, breaking Nicola Putignano his record of 19:02 from last year.

After 10 minutes of oxygen breathing he started his breath hold, while laying still face down in the water. The first 12 minutes were no problem at all, and the fight really started after that.

Peter Colat is already a previous record holder in this discipline. In 2008 he already held the record for 16:32 minutes. In the mean time four men and one woman have broken that time.

• Nicola Putignano – 19:02 min
• Karoline Meyer (female) – 18:32 min
• Gianluca Genoni – 18:03
• Tom Sietas – 17:19 min
• David Blaine – 17:04 min
• Peter Colat – 16:32 min

This evening Nanja van der Broek her freediving school “Enker” will organize a static freediving competition in the Netherlands and Shark Freediving will present to compete and document the competition live.

At 20:00 (GMT+1) the warming up will start and at around 20:20 the first official top will take place. The competition will take place at swimmingpool “De Estafette” at the Helsinkilaan 1 in Nieuw Vennip (The Netherlands)

Live videostreaming of the competition depends on internet availability and 3G connectivity, but normally you can expect to see several high performing athletes live on our Shark Freediving Live page.

You can also see the announced performances, start times and updated result lists on that page as well. So have fun and good luck to all the athletes.

A week ago Shark Sports organized the first Shark Hot Tub Static competition. Goal of the competition was the start-up our event management capabilities with regards to freediving competition and to have some fun with some freedivers in the pool.

First of all we had decided to have some special rules for this competition. Stuff like no equipment, no warmups, etc (Read more here in the announcement). Second of all this was our testing competition for a bigger dynamic competition we are going to have in January to test out some underwater camera’s which can stream to the internet, live commentary and more.

We had 4 competitors who were willing to be test subject and they all thought this was going to be hard. Statics without warmup, no equipment and water that was around 36 degrees instead of the planned 32. And then take in account all the wires for the underwater equipment we produced by ourselves running in the pool. This could be one hell of an electric competition!

Sanne Buurma started the competition. Besides helping setting up the whole broadcasting station, he decided to jump in the water, do a 2 minute ‘laughing and talking’ warming up and come up with a time of 4:47 minutes.

Daan Verhoeven was next and he secretly wanted to do 6 minutes, but these new condition he knew it would be hard. In the end he managed to do the best time of the day with a 5:03 minute static. Wow, I’ve just witnessed the worst contractions I have ever seen. Contraction that take 10-12 seconds are just crazy to watch.

Then the ladies were up and Nanja van den Broek started with a very relaxed attitude and with no real hopes for a good time. In the end the competitor in here took over and she still managed to do a 4:34 static. Natascha was last and with a personal best of around3:45 in normal conditions everything in the neighbourhood of that time would already be great. In the end she managed to do a new personal best of 4:02 minutes, which is remarkable given the new and strange circumstances she had to do it in.

Lessons learned from this competition were that we need more internet capacity and cabled networks as the wireless reception is not great in the pool. Furthermore we need to equip the camera’s with fish-eye lenses so that we can better and clearer shots. Some stuff to work on in the coming month so that we can make something very nice in January.

You can see the video images from the competition on our live page. High def video’s are still being worked on, something we plan to provide much faster next time. More on that in a separate post next week where the announcement of the dynamic competition will take place.

A big thank you to Erik Skoda for being the judge during this event!

The Hot Tub

On December 11 Shark Sports organizes a small static competition in the “Tongelreep” Eindhoven, The Netherlands. And of course we wouldn’t be Shark if we wouldn’t make it special!

The static competition will take place in a 33 degrees hot tub pool and we’ve got some special rules:

• No masks, goggles or noseclips allowd. Only naturals!
• No wetsuit! If anybody who want this in this kind of water, he’s crazy anyway.
• No warming-up! Who needs a warming up in a 33 degrees pool anyway? When you step in the pool 2 minute countdown starts. When the last person is finished, he gets out and you get in. Simple as that!
• Fins allowed! If it makes you happy to wear your monofin during static… be our guest!

For the rest we follow the  standard AIDA rules. So no strange things with the surface protocol and points.

We have an interesting setup for the competition. The whole competition will be broadcasted live with 2 or 3 camera’s to the internet (also underwater). So that will be fun.

Competition is from 21:00 to 23:00 and besides having fun in the Hot Tub, there will be room for some dynamic  training as well. Price for the competition will be 12 euro and includes pool entrance.

Oh and don’t worry: the bubbles will be off!

As an extra note: this competition is also a test for  our next, somewhat bigger competition, on January 23 when we will organize a dynamic competition.

At the moment I’m finalizing the competition website. I’ll put another news item online as soon as the website is live.

Places are limited to around 10-12 people. So if you want in sent me an email or leave a comment!