Shark Freediving

Like I told in the previous post about this competition, it will be an interesting competition. In the mean time the first 3 days are already over and there are 2 more competition days to go. There are already some pretty strong and interesting results in the list. Lets go through the first 3 days!

Day 1

Adel Abu-Haliqa set a new UAE national record of 35 meters in the discipline constant weight. Maria Livbjerg from Denmark set a new national record in constant weight as well with a depth of 65 meters and last but not least Guillaume Nery set a French national record of 65 meters in the discipline constant without fins. 2 blackouts and 1 disqualification and 7 people with penalty points  on day 1

Day 2

Robert King from the USA sets a new national record in Free Immersion; 82 meters. Adel Abu-Haliqa improves the UAE record to 43 meters. 1 blackout, 1 disqualification and 7 people with penalty points on day 2

Day 3

Adel Abu-Haliqa set a new UAE national record in the discipline constant without fins by diving to a depth of 21 meters. Guillaume Nery improves his previous national record without fins to 72 meters (see this post). 2 blackouts, 0 disqualifications, 3 people get penalty points.

Remarks

It appears Johan Dahlstrom from Sweden really wants to get the magic 3 digit number of 100+ meters in constant weight. Too bad he has failed two times in a row. First on day 1 with a dive to 101 meters and second on day 3 with a 100 meter dive. Both end in a blackout.

Guillaume Nery seems very strong and really focused on constant without fins. As he has just started doing this discipline he’s already at great depth, and for sure he can add some meters more, so he will get in medal position for the depth world championships later this year.

Anna von Boetticher set a new variable weight record for Germany at 90 meters depth this morning, so she’s doing pretty well.

I will report back about day 4 and 5 later on! Results this far below the post or here a direct link.

By the way, Anna mentions a funny ‘accident’ with William Winram on her blog that I’ll quote here:

William Winram his face while going from -120 to -30 in 20 seconds!

William had obviously not had a good enough word with (brunette!) wife Michèle before he set off to dive, and had proper blond episode at 120m on the new giant no limits sled. It is a clever construction: When you hit the bottom, you pull out a pin that releases the weights. Then you inflate the liftbag, and off you go, minus thirty kilos, at ridiculous speed, back to the surface. Now Will, combining blond hair with a male thought process, decided to be extra clever and inflated the bag while the weights were still attached, to the point where the sled was beginning to move. Then he pulled out the pin and dropped the thirty kilos. You can imagine what happened next. The sled, now turned rocket, took off at warp speed, smacking Will’s foot but mercyfully avoiding his balls as it blew past him. He tried to grab hold of the kneebar – not a chance – and shot of the bottom attached only by his lanyard, which he had to climb along to get back to the sled. He spent the next 100m hanging on with one hand, while clutching his goggles and hood with the other one, screaming, in his own words, “fuck, fuck, fuuuuuuck” all the way up. At least he was screaming in his head, and gave me a very convincing demonstration of the facial expression he wore during the twenty seconds it took him to get from 120 to 30m. Here’s a picture

Today Guillaume Nery set a new national French record in the discipline constant weight without fins (CNF). He dived without his fins to a depth of 72 meters during the 2nd mediterranean freediving meeting. Guillaume about his dive:

The dive was nice. I was of course a little more tired than 2 days ago at 65m, but very clear at the surface. Right after the dive, I felt all the lactic acid burning every part of my body as I have never experienced before!

Guillaume started blogging in English 2 weeks ago and updates his blog regularly. You can read about this record here.

The Shark Freediving Calendar is once again updated. If you’re looking for a freediving competition for the month May then take a look in the calendar for full details or see the small summary below.

Competitions

29 June/5 July – Greece – Depth
3-5 July – Croatia – Depth
8-11 July – UK – Pool
11-12 July – New Zealand – Pool
11 July – Canada – Depth
12 July – Greece – Depth
18-19 July – UK – Depth
18 July – Venezuela – Pool
25 July – Switzerland – Depth
25-26 July – USA – Depth (by FII)
27-31 July – Poland – Depth
30 July – 2 aug – Hawaii – Pool/Depth

Record Attempts

None

If you have other events to add, please leave them in the comments!

11:35

It’s already the last day of the month again, so it’s time for our monthly look back at the freediving scene. What was the most important freediving news of the month June 2009?

June 8 – Stephane Mifsud 11:35 Static!

Stephane crushes the current static world record with his amazing 11:35 static. The record raises many questions by other freedivers and conspiracies start flying around. All in all, nothing is proven in the end only that Stephane did 11:35, so congrats to him!

June 26 – Herbert Nitsch 107 Meter Skandalopetra

Herbert takes a 10 kilo rock and let himself drop down to 107 meters depth in only his swimming trunks! His words afterwards down there: it’s cold here! Amazing dive and amazing athlete.

51.100

June 27 – Sandi Bitenc 51,1 kilometers Underwater in 24 hours!

Sandi swims 51,1 kilometers underwater in 24 hours. Shark Freediving reports live from this event. After witnessing this live I think this record has a place in the list of most impressive records ever.

Summary – June 2009

1 AIDA World Record
1 Guinness World Record
16 National AIDA Records
9 competition reports
36 posts
15 videos

Gaspare Battaglia

Too bad you don’t hear that much anymore about the Italian freedivers since they turned almost all away from AIDA. All big competitions over there are CMAS competition and it’s not that they are standing still with their performances. There are currently some great Italian freedivers doing very big numbers in competition.

I had this news item already in draft for some time, but forgot to finish it, so it’s a little bit old news, but still interesting. On june 5 Gasprare Battaglia set a new Italian static record during the Italian championships with a time of 7:23. Number 2 and 3 were very close with times of 7:15 and 7:14.

Gaspare is already a veteran in freediving and it’s good to see that you can still improve with age. Below the video of the performance.

Last weekend, Friday and Saturday, was the Czech championships 2009. This competition took place in Prague, Czech Republik. With 33 competitors itt ws a pretty busy competition.

Jana Skrobova

Winner with the men was Matin Petrisko with 266.1 points. He did a 6:38 static, a 207 meter dynamic with fins and a 166 meter without fins. Both dynamic results are new Czech national records.

With the women Jana Skrobova was the strongest with 173.7 points. She did a 5:01 static, a 119 with fins and a 108 without fins dive.

With almost 100 performances during the competition the 10 blackouts during the competition was pretty high. Especially during the dynamic without fins discipline. That’s is more then a 10% blackout rate. Pretty big number!

Complete results are below. Check it out.

All info, interviews, photos and videos will be place here!

Sandi Bitenc from Maribor (Slovenia) started yesterday at 18:00 hours with his grueling quest to do as many meters underwater as possible in 24 hours time. Today at 18:00 he finished this taks with a distance of 51.100 meters. That is a totaal of 1022 laps in a 50 meter pool!

We do an interview in half an hour or so. Exact time will be published here soon! Will be live streaming.

LIVE INTERVIEW STREAMING ON INTERNET AT 18:45

Previous parts can be found here: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

Watch the video’s: introduction / 6 hour video / 12 hour video / 18 hour video or subscribe to our youtube Sharkchannel

15:00-16:00
15:00 Sandi is at 46km/920 laps after 21 hours. He got his crew working on him right now. foot massage, oil, neck, shoulders, gelfood, drink…
15:20 he made an unexpected stop at 46400 meters. skipping 2 cycles. he ate a sandwich! The first solid food after 4 days!
15:44 time cycle up to 1:35.
15:47 small stop for an interview for local tv. but only for 1 minute.

16:00-17:00
16:06 After 22 hours he has done a distance 47.700 meters/954 laps. Estimated end distance: 52 km.
16:30 only 1,5 hour to go! he’s at 48.500 meters.
16:50 he’s at 4900 meters.

17:00-18:00 Last Hour
17:00 entering the last hour he’s at a distance of 49.350 meters/987 laps! He’s coming out now for a small break and prepares for the last hour.
17:18 @49800 meters
17:24 he just arrived at 50 km! 1000 laps… I say it again 1000 laps….
17:50 50800 meters, only 10 minutes to go!
18:00 FINAL DISTANCE 51.100 METERS!!!!

Previous parts can be found here: Part 1 / Part 2

Watch the video’s: introduction / 6 hour video / 12 hour video / 18 hour video or subscribe to our youtube Sharkchannel

10:00-11:00
10:05 after 16 hours he has done 36.200 km/724 laps. Estimated end distance 54300 km/1086 laps. he has to do 881 laps to break the record so he has to do 157 laps before reaching that!

11:00-12:00
11:05 he’s tired, but also very determined. 38.300 meters after 17 hours. That’s 766 laps underwater. Estimated end distance: 54050 meters / 1081 laps. He will reach the current of 44 kilometers around 13:00 GMT+1 if he continuous like this.
11:50 he’s now at 40 km! The same distance as Andy le Sauce in 2000. 4 km to go!!!
11:53 at 12:00 my official role as guinness witness starts. Pretty impressive paperwork to do for validating this record attempt.
11:55 Sandi asked to change the schedule from 1:15 per lap/rest cycle to 1:25!

12:00-13:00
12:05 Sandi has 6 hours left. In 18 hours time he managed to do 40.400 meters/808 laps. Predicted final distance: 53850 meters. But probably with the longer timeline it will drop to around 51-52 km. 73 laps to go for the record. Will he continue after that???
12:42 Sandi started with a 2kick/1glide cycle. doing 50 meter laps in 21 kicks and a little bit less then 45 seconds. After all these hours he’s getting tired and his kickcycle went up to 29 kicks and no glide anymore. he’s making very small kicks, which cost him less energy. Time of 50 meters went up to 51-52 seconds. That is also the reason the total cycle is up to 1:25 instead of 1:15.
12:57 Sandi just did an underwater marathon in 18:57 minutes….

13:00-14:00
13:02 Already 19 hours have passed and Sandi has done 42.400 meters/848 laps. Estimated end distance: 53.550 meters. 43 laps to go before he has the new record. 13:45 I guess….
13:30 he’s at 43300 meters in 19:30 hours.
13:39:30 he’s at 44km!!!! 19:49:30
13:50 new world record 44050 meters and he still has 4 hours to go.
13:53 he’s out of the water now. taking a break. Standing again. wow.

14:00-15:00
14:05 and he’s back in again. new cycle time of 1:30 min. so a little slower, but for sure he will go over 50 km!!!
14:10 if anybody wants to send a personal message. You can video skype me and I can show you sandi directly on the side of the pool. Just add jorgjansen to skype and give me a call.
14:22 we’re getting a lot of messages. as Sandi arrives at my side of the pool I transfer them to him. He says thanks to everybody for the support. It makes it somewhat bearable.
14:32 he’s at 45 km.
14:55 Sanne just made a new video. Hours 12 to 18. Have a look.

We continue in part 4 here.

00:00-01:00
00:05 This is part 2 of the 24 hour freediving attempt. Read the first post over here. Sandi has already done 14 km in 6 hours. With this pace he will get to 56 km. Photos and video are on their way!
00:45 Unexpected stop! His right toe is hurting like crazy. they put a little bit of neoprene on his toe and after 2 minute he’s gone again.

01:00-02:00
01:10 he skipped the one hour break because of the early break in the last hour. so next stop will be at 2:00
01:50 he has reached 18 km! Getting ready for the break.

02:00-03:00
02:08 after 8 hours of swimming he’s at 18600 meters. That’s 372 laps! Projected end distance with this pace:55800 meters! He’s way above schedule, but he’s starting to get physical problems. During the break he said he could manage it, but he looked much more tired then the hour before.
02:19 Sanne has just uploaded the video compilation of the first 6 hours! go have a look in the first post about this attempt or click here to see it directly.

03:00-04:00
03:05 After 9 hours he has done 20600 meters. Projected pace 54900 meters. Rest was one cycle longer, around 4,5 minutes. But he looks much better then an hour earlier. shortness of breath is gone, and the body doesn’t hurt that much anymore. For now!
03:35 he’s at 22 km!

04:00-05:00
04:05 after 10 hours he has done 23.100 meters. Projected in 24 hours: 55400 meters. 462 laps!
04:10 he is now at 23.225. that is the first record set in May 21 1991 by Francis Bruchini in Francija
04:40 he’s at 24.400 and going strong. we did some underwater footage and he still had time to make some funny faces!
04:45 with the current pace he will break the existing record after 19 hours and 6 minutes. That’s 13:06 local time!
04:50 estimated underwater time after 24 hours with this pace: 13 hours and 50 minutes.

05:00-06:00
05:05 Sandi is swimming for 11 hours now. He looked more tired then the last break. 4 minutes rest and he was gone again. Distance covered 25.300 meters/506 laps! With this pace he will reach 55.200 meters after 24 hours. Average speed is 2,3 km/hour including rest.
05:10 without the rest periods he has an average swimming speed of 3,8 km/h.
05:20 he just passed the 26km. This was the 2nd world record in this discipline. Done in March 13 1993 by Jean-Francois Noël.

06:00-07:00
06:05 he is halfway there! 27.600 meters done/552 laps. Estimated end distance 55.200/1104 laps. Wow!
06:10 we have to stop the live stream for around 10-20 minutes. The battery is getting too hot and can’t be recharged at the moment. so we let it cool for some time now.

07:00-08:00

08:00-09:00

09:00-10:00
09:05 After 15 hours he has done 34 kilometers/680 laps! he’s getting tired, you can see it clearly now. but it’s amazing that he can keep going. Estimated end distance now at 54.400 meters.
09:45 he has done 35km 575m, which is the old record from Stéphane Francois done on December 7 1996 in Reunion Island.

We continue in part 3.