The AIDA World Freediving Championships

Introduction

29.11.09 - Sara competes in the heats.

© Sara Campbell/The BLUE Project

Well, we've completed the heats of No Fins; women dived yesterday, men today. and I have to say, if the first two days are anything to go by, we'll see some impressive dives and some big surprises too!

So, first off, the women. With 13 women starting, it was a small comp, but nonetheless exciting for that. Unfortunately Heidi Heidenreich of Germany started an early trend with a small black-out on her 35m dive but with two years out of the water, it was an ambitious target. With no plans to do CWT, she's now looking forward to a lovely holiday on Long Island with her boyfriend, Mark. Out of the 13 divers, only six got white cards, including the starter!!! Black-outs came from some of the most promising divers; Kathryn McPhee, who unfortunately also suffered a squeeze; and Jarmila Solvencikova who joined Kathryn on the squeezing, although for her it was her first it doesn't feel good here, she told me, pointing to her chest. Just two years ago in Sharm, Jarmila took Gold with a 50m dive and since then I think she's felt the pressure to perform. She attempted a World Record in the discipline last year, but blacked out just a metre or so from the surface on a 62m dive and since then has struggled with the expectation and pressure of being the one to challenge Molchanova. Oh how I know how that feels!! You have my heart, Jarmila!

Klara Hansson suffered the fourth black-out of the day, which seemed to go on forever, but she recovered perfectly and was in great spirits again today, coaching Christian Ernest on his CNF dive, but more on that later.

Of course Natalia Molchanova did an easy 55m dive to qualify for the finals and will be joined by ALL other white card divers certainly Junko of Japan who did the happiest National Record I think I have ever seen with 48m, Brigitte Banegas of France added a massive 11m on to her former National Record in CNF, and the shallowest diver to qualify is Olga Suryakova with a 40m dive. For sure she never expected to get through! Also through are NZ's Niki Roderick who is coached by boyfriend, Martin Stepanek, and Jana Strain of Canada, who did a predictably strong performance of 46m. Safety certainly had their work cut out for them with all the black-outs and it was a good opportunity to really test the teamwork on the platform and in the water with some real stress situations.

Today the men were up and down! It was a much busier field with 26 divers and a massive 11 National Records. Sweden had a fabulous day, with all three divers setting National Records; first Anders Larsson with 63m, then Sebastian Naslund with an amazingly strong 65m and Christian Ernest was smiling EVEN more than usual with a perfect 66m for the Scandinavian record too. But there was real national bonding going on and happiness from each diver for each other's performance, even if they only managed to hold the record for a few minutes. The French,  Morgan Bourchis, Christian Maldame and Guillaume Nery demonstrated perfect training and team tactics (even though it's not a team competition) three dives to 73m, each executed with absolute ease and grace they are certainly worth watching! Their tactics paid off all three of them through to the finals!

Also through, with no big surprises, are Will T, Will W, Herbert and Alexey, although he nearly fluffed it by almost blacking out AFTER his surface protocol, although with Jana and Natalia screaming at him to breathe in their respective languages, I think any man would have been foolish not to listen!

Sad points of the men's comp were Christian Moller, my flatmate and who I was coaching, and Kerian Hibbs. Christian made it to the surface and looked like he was going to make it perhaps with a bit more hook breathing he would have held on, but it was almost a repeat performance of my black-out on 100m here in April earlier in the year; surface, breathe and then fall gently back into the water and the arms of the waiting safety divers. Man, I felt for him! Kerian was also a heartbreaking black-out 72m should have been an easy one for him, a dive he's done three times already in training. He was calm but confident and I was amazed and gutted to see him falter and try and grab for the line at around 3m from the surface, then exhale and have to be brought to the surface. It's dives like these two, when the diver SHOULD make the performance, and has worked so hard, and placed their heart into every stroke of the dive, that make everyones heart sink and you wonder how, despite the smiles, diver is really feeling.

Also worth mentioning are the Danish National Records jointly held now by the two Mads Becker Jorgenson and Isberg. They both hit 63m. What a pity Christian couldn't have made it a threesome (you know what I mean!;-). Will Winram set a new Canadian record hurrah, at last!! as did Jure Daic of Slovenia, Rob King of USA, Antero Joki of Finland, Adel Abu Haliqa of UAE and Jason Weller-an unlikely name for a Spaniard if ever I heard of one!

At the end of it all I think was the highlight of my day, when a lovely French doctor came up and said he would have to help me get undressed! REALLY?!!? Yes unfortunately it was all in the name science. Fred is a physiologist with the French team and he is doing ECG test on any willing athletes. So I got myself all wired up with electrodes all over my chest, cover the lot with stickers, and then put my wetsuit on over the lot. Finally a cute little backpack holding the computer to which everything was connected. Debbie (BEFZ videographer) was excited as she thought I looked like I had a scuba set on my back. Personally I think it looked more like a small rocket-launcher and was having all sorts of fantasies of how deep I might be able to go if it were true, and how much fun it would be rocketing back to the surface from 100+m! No such luck I got a needle stuck in my finger twice, before and after the dive to check my lactate levels and had to fin down to 60m and back. Still it was a nice training dive and lots of fun to work with him. Now I just have to have my teeny weeny lungs checked to find out how small they really are (last count a puny 3.7 litres!) and that's it a three month wait for the results.

Tomorrow is rest day before women's heats in Constant Weight start on Monday. The games have started in terms of what to announce and how  many women can dive below 70m? Hmmm, with Kathryn's squeeze and what she thinks is a possible throat infection coming on which exaccerbated her black-out yesterday, it's unclear whether she'll be diving that deep now. Jana? Don't think she's been below 60m, Niki Roderick, no idea! Jarmila can go below 70m and I don't even need to mention Natalia! So will 60m be enough or should I do 70m to be safe? Well, I have another 12 hours before I have to drop that piece of paper into the sealed announcement box so a little sleep and lots of second-guessing between now and then!

The weather today was perfect, clear, warm, great visibility in the water and the sun shone all day! The safety guys are great really well organised and extremely good company in the water a  pleasure to dive with. I loved seeing Phil doing a reverse variable at the end of the day to bring the bottom plate up for the night he free immersioned his way down and at 45 seconds, as agreed, the line was brought up - it looked so much fun as he popped through the surface of the water, as if he were jumping out of a giant birthday cake as a surprise!

Then home to chat with Christian and eat my first real food of the day as the sun set's really not too shabby, this  lifestyle!