The second Act of OriginECN Vertical Blue reached the midway point on Saturday with Day 5 of the competition.
The day started with several athletes deciding not to proceed with their dives for various reasons, all of which added to the tension onsite.
The biggest highlight came from the showdown between Hanako Hirose (Japan) and Alenka Artnik (Slovenia) who went head-to-head just 20 minutes apart to see if they could equal the current Constant Weight World Record of 105m.
The current record is held by Alessia Zecchini, who set it earlier this year at the Nirvana OceanQuest competition. Zecchini was on hand watching both athletes and cheered them on as they both hit their depths and returned to the surface.
Hirose had a shaky, but clean, surface protocol and Artnik came up with a super clean protocol. Both athletes received white cards and celebrations started.
However all competition dives are subject to a video review by the onsite judges after all the dives of the day and in this case, it was noticed that Hirose had pulled on the line outside the approved area – also known as the candy-cane, and hence was disqualified (known as a DQ Pull) leaving Artnik to be the only athlete of the two to now share the record with Zecchini.
We still have 4 days of competition left so we have no doubt this is not the last time we see these amazing women compete head-to-head.
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Saturday also saw 6 new National Records:
- Alex Davis (Barbados) with 92m Constant Weight (CWT)
- Sayuri Kinoshita (Japan) with 91m Free Immersion (FIM)
- Alice Modolo (France) with 86m Constant Weight (CWT)
- Samo Jeranko (Slovenia) with 110m Constant Weight (CWT)
- Martin Zajac (Slovakia) with 102m Constant Weight (CWT)
- Michael Board (Great Britain) with 101m Free Immersion (FIM)
Official full results are available below (click to enlarge):
Two onsite photographers – Daan Verhoeven and Alex St-Jean – are capturing the action during each day! Check out some of the action from Day 5 below (click to see them in full screen):
The competition will be live-streamed by the underwater drone Diveye and broadcast via the Vertical Blue Facebook Page and across social media with the hashtag #VB2018.
Stay tuned to DeeperBlue.com as we bring you coverage from the event.
Feature photo by Alex St-Jean
