Wellington Winter Champs 2007
In the weekend of June 9th New Zealand had a freediving competition going on in Wellington. Considering this was only the second competition for the year, there were some pretty good performances from the guys and gals down under. Kerian Hibbs, who is coached under Ant Williams, topped the comp with 195.8 points. His approach was spot on, pulling off three nice clean dives with still enough left in him to show us he is capable of more.
It was refreshing to see 3 new faces on the scene, their warm up’s were timed to perfection, their smiles after each successful dive spread from ear to ear. Not to take anything away from the competitors but I think the morning updates about Dave Mullins progress in Egypt lifted spirits and drove the nerves away for at least a few minutes.
With the 7 men competing, Kerian Hibbs was the clear winner and did a 169 dynamic with fins, a 101 without fins and a 5:04 min static. That was clearly enough for the first place. Wendy Henry was the winner with the 2 woman competing, beating Kathryn McPhee, the only Kiwi going to the pool world championships in Maribor.
Kathryn didn’t really have a good day. In her own words: “The comp for me didn’t go so well. It was my worst one ever. 
I miscalculated a few things and ended up falling over after standing up at the end of my DYN event at 102m (done without fins in the 50m pool), and again after my static performance at 5:07s. The first meant that I was unable to compete in “my event”, the dynamics without fins. I’ve spent a lot of time analysing every aspect and I feel there were a number of factors that can pretty much be summarised as: physical & mental fatigue and a poor warm up for both events.” You can watch the video of Kathryn’s dynamic no fins performance below.
Our next comp is in August and with the ‘big guns’ flying in from Oz everyone will be working hard over the next 8 weeks to give them an unforgettable welcome.
Thanks go to Fran Rose for the report and pictures she send in. This way we get to cover the whole globe. 
