Thursday, March 28, 2024
FreedivingThe Freedive Show -- Diary -- 26th

The Freedive Show — Diary — 26th

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Monday 26th May 2003 – 11:00pm

Check out todays photos here!

What an interesting afternoon! Surprises came thick and fast. Almost across the board competitors failed to deliver on expected results. Top time started at 14:30 and finished at 16:55 with the final 30 minutes holding the majority of the competitors expected to bring in strong performances.

Emma Farrell, one of our staff writers, took the opportunity to interview several key players today and you can read mroe about them here, however Whilst we’re still waiting for the official media briefing later tonight I thought we’d like to highlight some key moments today.

Herbert Nitch managed 155m when he eventuall pulled up. A catalogue of problems hampered him achieving his best performance. He ended up with 10 penalty points for breaching during a turn.

Haydn Welch pulled up after 50m stating his mind wasn’t in the right place. Nerves obviously got the better of him.

Brent Pascal of Canada set a new national record for Dynamic without fins but failed to break Herbert’s current world record. Speaking to Herbert afterwards he explained he would have contemplated retaking his record if Brent had broken it, even though he would have had penalty points for not hitting his subscribed 153m.

Pierre Frolla got disqualified for a hand gesture that was seen as insulting the judges after a strong performance of 153m. However after the event committee this evening Pierre informed me that he had appealed and the judges looked like they were going to overturn his disqualification. This would place Pierre at 1st in the Mens standings as he had a clean performance otherwise.

Bill Stromberg had his first attempt cancelled due to a chair still being in the water. After during his second attempt he managed 126m which wasn’t his personal best but since he stated he had trained for the event, came up as a very respectable figure.

On the womens side Natalia Molochanova managed to equal the current world record of 150m. Everyone expected her to go further but she pulled up at 150m stating that she "forgot" to go further.

Annabel Briseno managed a new personal best of 137m, which is a new US womens record, however for the competition she acculumated 11 penalty points for breaching the surface during a turn and starting late.

Lotta Ericson, Annabel’s fellow team member, hit 111m which is a new personal best and a Swedish National Record.

We are still awaiting the official results and i’m sure there will be some more personal bests set and we will report them as we get the details.

On a final note, an honourable mention should goto Stuart and Collette. 9 and 14 respectively there are not officially part of the competition but represent the new breed of Freedivers. Stuart managed a 23m dynamic whilst Collette delighted the crowds with a 56m performance.

The constant part of the competition starts tomorrow morning with Stephane Mifsud, Bill Stromberg, Sophie Passalacque and Lotta Ericson leading the competitors on the first day of constant weight.

Keep tuned!

SW

Monday 26th May 2003 – 12:40pm

Dynamics start in 2 hours and the team here is getting ready to head down to the olympic pool. We watched Annabel train yesterday and spoke to several other competitors. All report strong performances in training so we should expect a good battle today.

Martin Stepanek has pulled out of dynamic since he is likely to be diving as one of the first in Constant Weight tomorrow. Lee Donelly has also said he is likely to pull out due to a cold (which several competitors seemed to have picked up whilst here). Hayden Welch was still unsure if he was going for a PB when we spoke to him on Saturday, but we’re expecting a strong performance. There may be some unknowns who could bring some surprises to the table, we’ve heard reports of at least 2 who might bring in strong performances.

We’ll report results when we get back this evening.

SW

Check out the Photos

We are posting photos of the event in our Gallery. Why not check out the daily activites.

Official Website

In addition to the coverage here, why not visit the Official Competition Website

Partners

Why not visit Apnea Magazine for Italian, or SportalSub.net for Spanish translations of our coverage?

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Stephan Whelan
Stephan Whelanhttps://www.deeperblue.com
Stephan is the Founder of DeeperBlue.com. His passion for the underwater world started at 8 years old with a try-dive in a hotel pool on holiday that soon formulated into a lifelong love affair with the oceans. In 1996 he set up DeeperBlue.com and has grown the site to be the most popular diving website and community in the world.

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