Live from Egypt 2006

[larsemil]

Originally Posted by f3dive

Any word on how Niki from New Zealand went?

she did her dive just fine! met her in the lobby a couple of hours ago. also the swedes made their dives, and peter pedersen from denmark

[spaghetti]

questions about Italy, please
Womens' CW: did anyone do better than our homegirl Linda Paganelli so far? Has anybody seen Giacomo De Mola?

[larsemil]

i think linda is the deepest woman yet. she did a nice dive today and got a white card.

[larsemil]

oh i forgot: www.fridykning.se/news.php WC news on swedish...

[trullalla]

Originally Posted by spaghetti

questions about Italy, please
Womens' CW: did anyone do better than our homegirl Linda Paganelli so far? Has anybody seen Giacomo De Mola?

ciao spaghetti!

i did my dive today and it was fine. for the moment i'm the deepest girl, but natalia and mandy announced respectively 81 and 75.
the other italian girls are diving tomorrow morning.
giacomo is also diving tomorrow...but unfortunately is sitting here next to me with a bad cold and a serious sinus congestion. and he's threatening to infect the rest of us!

sorry, i don't have much time for updating, i'll try to post tomorrow with the results.

linda

[Marwan]

congrats linda, best of luck

[watts]

If thats the pool they are in its no wonder Benny smashed his fin. . Hope you sort it out bro.

Go team Australia

[BennyB]

Thanks dude. Yep - the Kershkov is history, nice 12 inch gash up the middle thanks to a f*cked up pool. 400 euro down the toilet along with the rest of the cash I forked out to come here....

The pool is the worst i've ever seen (that earlier photo was the nice pool at the hotel). It's salt water so it's extremely buoyant and thick like swimming through soup. My 33m laps usually take 13 kicks but I was averaging 19-20 in this pool. It's 16 degrees in the morning and 18 in the afternoon and feels incredibly cold. My bugbear is the ends don't have corners, the have a slope so you can't actually see the end of the pool. My fin would have been fine if it was a normal pool end but because of the slope it was put under a lot more pressure on the turn. It also means that you can't stand at the end of the pool because you keep sliding under. It's an absolute joke, you'd expect more for a world cup.

Anyway I complained with a few others at tonight's meeting and they said there's a 50m pool with proper ends somewhere else that we can try. God only knows why we didn't go to that one first......

In the meantime the Russian coach has generously offered me a couple of fins to try, big thanks to him for that. Though I must say the thought of doing a 52m dive with a untested fin doesn't sit well with me.

Inshallah

[trux]

There is an update on the Czech AIDA website with today's results and some photos.

[Apnea_Addict]

Sorry to hear that, Benny

[Evita]

It is such an anti climax to be here.

I went to the dynamic pool today along with the others and I couldn't believe it. This is what we are supposed to compete in at the world championship? The pinnacle of freediving events this year? The pool deserves a separate discipline, a separate ranking list. It's a joke, and a bad one at that. BennyB and larsemis has already described it well, I just needed to vent my frustration here.

At the meeting tonight some of us asked the jury to reconsider giving this pool the blue stamp for an AIDA competition (and not just any AIDA competition...). Then Yehia pulled a new 50m pool out of his sleeve (where was this pool when he planned the event?), which the jury will go look at tomorrow, so no decisions yet. And no proper preparation for the athletes yet.

This is a very divisive issue - some are pragmatic and say "let's make the most of it, at least the bad conditions are equal for all". That's a nice, positive attitude. Others feel that a line has been crossed and minimum standards been violated, even if they are not in the regulations - "we should not sanction this by going ahead with the dynamic competition, as if this pool and the absolute lack of planning for it is okay". People have different reasons for joining one or the other position - some go by principles and some go by strategy, as a cancellation could really shift the final placement of the teams. Clearly I am not with the strategy-minded - my team would gain a lot in dynamic - but we need to draw the line.

We'll see what happens tomorrow. Please don't think that we don't want to update you, it's just that the internet connection here is so unreliable.

[Flojt]

Sorry to hear about the pool and the messup with it, Sorry for you Benny B aint fun so see good money be ruined like that.

Here is all the results from the czech page, I hope someone can fill in the blanks about the cpl of dives, *, that there aint no coments about yet !

1.Johansen Eva Tommerup DEN 10m OK
2.Hansen Britt Moller DEN 25m OK
3.Dordevic Marco SCG 30m OK
4.Pantazi Ariana CYP 35m OK
5.Arippol Karen BRA 40m OK
6.Subutin Darija SCG 40m OK
7.Kojic Uros SCG 41m -7b
8.Yoneda Jill CAN 42m OK
9.Sawas Sawa CYP 43m -7b

10.Schwann Helene FRA 43m OK
11.Saari Susanna FIN 45m OK
12.Money Timothy GBR 47m BO
13.Balanou Panagiota GRE 47m BO
14.Garner Helen RSA 48m OK
15.Morgan David Rhys GBR 50m OK
16.Nicola Roderick NZE 51m OK
17.Eriksen Maria Livbjerg DEN 52m OK
18.Gautier Julie FRA 55m OK
19.Luis Gonzaga Turrent Rueda MEX 55m BO

20.Mikhailovski Matej SLO 56m OK
21.Arippol Derick BRA 60m BO
22.Debuissy Caroline FRA 60m OK
23.Howe Juliana USA 60m BO
24.Joki Antero FIN 61m OK
25.Hirai Misuzu JPN 61m OK

* 26. Hidalgo Lorenzo VEN 61m
* 27. Del Duca Antonio VEN 62m

28. Hartus Mark GBR 65m 65m OK
29.Weine Gusstavson SWE 65m OK

30.Bill Stromberg SWE 66m OK
31.Petr Vala CZE 70m OK
32.Avseenko Natalia RUS 70m OK
33.Chatziaslan Dimitris GRE 71m OK
34.Paganelli Linda ITA 72m OK
35.Kinnunen Timo FIN 80m OK
36.Pedersen Peter DEN 82m OK
37.Winram William CAN 84m OK

Cheers

[samdive]

Tim Money and Derrick Arripol get to dive again on Saturday -both BOd and protested following a f*** up as the organiser had decided to use cheap, light key ring type carabiners to sink the tags which then got tangled on their lanyards. Tim dragged his all the way up to the surface.... Apparently the carabiners on the tags today will be heavier so they won't bounce around on the bottom and catch in the lanyards

At this stage, someone should say a HUGE thanks to the jury (Grant Graves, Dimitri Vassilakis, Gaby Contreras, Ute Gessman and Chris Engelbrecht), Kirk Krack and a load of other people who are working their bits off to make this happen - big hand to them all and lots of beers on the last night no doubt.

Apparently the TV yesterday was a success and it was televised live - but no one has been able to tell us where

Watch this space for more news...

Sam

[RockFTO]

Hello everybody, second cwt day ahead. Wish good luck to all divers. Looking forward to hearing some news.

[Marwan]

all these mess ups that are being reported suggest that there is a break down in the system not just with the organiser. I'm no expert on freediving, but in other sports (say soccer for example) FIFA will final inspect and "sign off" that the hosting country is ready. I would expect AIDA to do the same right? so in case organisers mess up (in light of what they are supposed to do as per their commitment with AIDA) it is detected and corrected at least some time in advance and not during the world cup..pardon my limited kowledge about freediving competitions but from organizing an event standpoint wouldnt that make sense to you? To me AIDA is to blame as much as the organiser.
Good luck to all those competing and try to keep your spirits up...
cheers