news from Cyprus...

[Alun]

here's a thread for people to post news from Cyprus...

ok, i'll go first....

Carlos Coste apparently did a 105m constant weight training dive today!

[efattah]

Are you serious or joking? Where did the info come from?

Maybe Carlos is the one Alki was referring to when he said someone had announced more than 100m.


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada

[Alun]

serious.

the HUMINT came from one of my trusted spies on the ground... Agent "M"

he's kept a fairly low profile over the last 12 months. it seems he's about to really shake things up in constant weight freediving. i think Martin and Herbert will have a tough time beating that. Guillaume's new 96m record won't last long either - about 5 days!

[efattah]

Although inspiring and almost chilling, this is very strange indeed.

Last year when Carlos announced a record attempt in constant weight, the depth to beat was 93m (Martin's record). Then, while Carlos was training, Herbert did 95m. Laminar was writing an article and asked Carlos about the CW progress. Carlos said that Martin's 93m would be hard to beat, and with the new record being 95m it would be extremely hard--and he ended up cancelling the 96m attempt and only going for free immersion (101m) and unassisted (61m).

Now, having been pretty deep myself, I can say for sure that you don't just gain 13m without changing something. Carlos or his training must have made some sort of MAJOR breakthrough for him to jump from 92m to 105m+, especially since he was obviously unable to do 96m last summer.

Keep in mind that in Cyprus last year, Carlos 'only' announced 85m (and made it). So, regardless of his 105m+, he may still only announce 100m or 101m.

This will be interesting and probably historic.

Carlos is supposed to be coming to Vancouver for the 2004 worlds. Last time I competed against him was in Nice in 2000, when I did 63m and he did 57m. However, it appears that this time it will be MUCH harder to beat him!! I better start aiming for 110m...


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada

[Alun]

i suspect that Carlos dives to great depth (90+) on a regular basis (at least once a week). he probably has very good diving conditions out there for most of the year. this is what has allowed him to jump from 85 to 105 in just 12 months. no amount of gym/dry training can compete with that...

with this theory in mind, i am now cutting out what little "training" i used to do and replacing it with diving over the summer months. i hope to dive 4 times a week instead of twice. i expect this to make a very significant difference to my diving performance.

[efattah]

Alun,

Beware of DCS. Tyler seems to have had a possible minor DCS hit after doing 59m, 30m, 22m, then 71m, in succession, in cold water.


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada

[efattah]

There is an interview on http://www.sportalsub.net with Carlos, and he says he hopes to retake the constant weight record.

He also mentions the 2004 worlds.

Eric Fattah
BC, Canada

[Alun]

i'm surprised he decided to do the 71m last, rather than first. i'm sure you all know it's better to do deep dives first. doing a deep dive after those first three dives is almost asking for trouble. wouldn't you agree?

i will probably be diving on sat, sun, tue and thur... so i have rest days in between. when going for maximum depth i will be doing only one dive.

[tylerz]

59m, 30m, 22m, then 71m

Well the order was actually 30, 22, 59, 71. I didn't realize that I was at DCS danger depths. I would have only done the one deep dive but I forgot that I had set the weight at the end of the line to ~70m, so I turned not knowing how deep I really was on the 59m dive. Then realized at the surface that I could just go to the end of the line and that should be a decent depth.

Anyhow my caution to do only one deep dive in general was to not overexert my legs, not because I thought there was a danger of DCS.

Learned from this one thanks to a flood of comments from laminar and Eric.

Anyhow any idea of how many divers will be attempting over 90m at the competition?

[Alun]

i suppose it depends on a number of factors - like your surface interval. if you had 30mins between the 59 and 71 then it probably wouldn't have been as risky. the problem is that none of us really know where the "limits" are with this stuff. the best approach is to increase depths, number of dives, etc very gradually. that way you should be able to sense when you're pushing things in terms of DCS. making big jumps in depth, number of dives, with short intervals could result in a sudden nasty surprise!

when you dive deep, do you set the bottom plate to a specific depth? can you set the depth accurately? to within 1m?

[Alun]

"today in constant training athletes reached - 105 meters.
AXEL From LIMASSOL, CYPRUS"
... from freediver guestbook....

pfft... old news! remember where you heard it first - here on DB!

interesting that he said athleteS... plural...

[ivan]

hi

I heard from Wal that he did a pb of 80m in training the other day whilst his buddy from Japan (I forget the name) something like Ryuzu did 88m whilst training with Wal.

cheers

[Alun]

news from freediver guestbook...

Martin and Herbert have now both done 105m CW also...!! looks like they've pushed themselves up another level also. this is going to be an amazing competition!

[ivan]

hi

This is gonna be sick, cant wait to hopefully see some video of these insane dives

cheers

Ps Do you know if anyone is doing massive statics ?

[Alun]

all i heard was that Herbert is doing over 8mins.... no great surprise there!