Wow – what a tremendous competition this years AIDA 2016 Freediving World Pool Championships was!
Over the course of the 9 days, 95 athletes from 21 countries competed fiercely to be crowned World Champion in one of three Pool Freediving Disciplines – Static (STA), Dynamic (DYN) and Dynamic No-Fins (DNF).
RELATED: Freediving Disciplines Explained
An amazing 114 Personal Bests (PB’s) were set during the competition, 22 National Records and 6 new World Records!
Competition organizer Mikko Anttonen was over the moon with the competition:
“The past week has been amazing. I’m so proud of all the athletes and members of the organizer team. In our original proposal to host this competition we promised to give athletes conditions where they have possibility to break their personal bests, national records or even world records. The athletes truly reached their potential and I believe they have still a lot more meter and seconds ahead of them. It was great to have the world wide freediving family here in Turku Finland and we’ll meet in some other competition in the future.”
AIDA President Carla-Sue Hanson was also ecstatic about how well the competition was organized.
“The 2016 AIDA Pool World Championships was the most well organized and technically advanced competition AIDA has ever had. There was not one hitch – everything was perfect from the transportation, to the accommodation, pool facilities and most congenial volunteers from AIDA Finland. Never before have we had a professional live broadcast streaming throughout an event or such precision in execution of every element in the championship. The calm atmosphere and perfectly controlled pool environment provided a stage which enabled optimum performances.
World records by Mateusz Malina, fellow Polish athlete Magdalena Solich, Ukranian Alexander Bubenchikov and George Panagiotakis from Greece.
The bar had been set very high and the next host/organizer will have to work hard to equal the success of Mikko Antonnen and staff. We thank all of them for their efforts.
I have never been more proud to be part of AIDA International Freediving”
DeeperBlue.com congratulates all the athletes, organizers, officials and volunteers of the competition!
You can see our gallery from the Closing Ceremony below courtesy of Elina Manninen.
You can see the overview video produced by the competition organizers below:
