The penultimate day of the AIDA World Depth Championship freediving competition in Roatan, Honduras, saw two new national records in the women’s Constant Weight (CWT) discipline.
Germany’s Jennifer Wendland successfully dove to 102m/335ft for a white card and national record.
In a post-dive interview during the livestream, Wendland said she was “happy” with her result:
“I had a bit of difficulty to equalize, was really happy to make it. And then I grabbed the tag and I was very relieved, and then I had quite strong narcosis today, so I think my dive was much slower than expected.”
Taiwan’s Mia Hou added a third national record to her trophy haul with a 70m/230ft dive.
Not every record attempt ended in success, however.
France’s Marianna Gillespie, who notched a world record on Day 1, couldn’t repeat her success on Day 7, earning a red card for blacking out near the surface after diving down to 104m/341ft.
In a Facebook post, Gillespie wrote:
“Announcing just 1 meter more that I did in training last week – I was confident that a dive to 104 meters with a monofin will bring me another gold medal.
“But it did not turn as planned – I was feeling tired already around 60 meters in my assent, the technique started to change… I don’t remember much, actually but as it seems that around 10m before reaching the surface, I suddenly became very hypoxic and blacked out at around 4 meters underwater.
“Luckily, World Championship is the safest place if something goes wrong – safety team have picked me up immediately and soon afterwards the medical team helped me to recover with oxygen. Thank you guys for taking care of me!
“Why did it happen? I can only guess that accumulated tiredness has kicked up, during the last week of the competition, I got a World Record, 2 x National Records and 2 x gold medals which actually is quite a lot to handle!”
Unfortunate last day of the World Championship for me… Announcing just 1 meter more that I did in training last week -…
Posted by Marianna Gillespie on Tuesday, August 23, 2022
Turkey’s Sahika Ercumen was vying for a 100m/328ft national record, but earned a yellow card for turning back at 68m/223ft.
And South Africa’s Natalie Rudman wanted to add to her record haul with a 78m/256ft dive, but only managed to get to 73m/239.5ft before turning back.
Full Day 7 – Women’s Constant Weight with Monofin (CWT) – Results
The AIDA Website gives the results as follows:
Diveye Live Stream
Check out the live stream each day of the competition on the AIDA Youtube Channel. Diveye, the remote underwater filming drone, is onsite. The replay of Day 7 is below.
Day 8 will be the final main day of competition with the Men competing in the Constant Weight (CWT) discipline. Keep checking back on DeeperBlue.com for all the action and results at the 2022 AIDA Depth World Championships.
(Featured image credit: Luke Coley)
