Last weekend on April 6 and 7th, AIDA Japan held their annual pool championship in Tateyama.
Junko Kitahama was on hand serving both as a judge and a roving reporter for Deeperblue. This year a special guest judge, Ekaterina Romanova from Russia, came to oversee the competition and help the beginner athletes. This year saw many fresh faces at Tateyama – all simultaneously smiling, crying and expressing great emotion as they faced their own challenges, conquered new experiences and achieved personal bests. As for the veteran Japanese freedivers, such as “Mimi” Hirai, the pool competition offered them a chance to demonstrate some strong performances in preparation of the World Championships in Serbia this June.
STATIC – Male STATIC – Female
1 Tetsuya Inaba 6’15” 1 Maki Kanno 6’05”
2 Tetsuo Hara 6’14” 2 Misuzu Hirai 5’18”
3 Katsumi Kaneda 6’12” 3 Noriko Yamada 5’02”
DYN – Male DYN – Female
1 Atsushi Kawai 158m 1 Misuzu Hirai 156m
2 Shuichi Goto 150m 2 Natsuki Shimizu 152m
3 Kazumi Aoyama 141m 3 Yuri Maruyama 116m
DNF- Male DNF – Female
1 Takashi Ito 130m 1 Misuzu Hirai 105m
2 Katsumi Kaneda 119m 2 Maki Kanno 92m
3 Shuichi Goto 107m 3 Natsuki Shimizu 90m
OVERALL – Male OVERALL – Female
1 Katsumi Kaneda 196.4 pts 1 Misuzu Hirai 194.1 pts
2 Shuichi Goto 193.1 pts 2 Natsuki Shimizu176.0 pts
3 Kazuo Aoyama 171.9 pts 3 Maki Kanno 163.0 pts
“After the competitions, we will select the Japanese National team members for Belgrade. Let’s see who is going to be there! Please stay tuned for the next update!” chimed Junko.
photo © Junko Kitahama
