83 Cnf - New Wr

[telekonos]

first a fall i must congratulate martin on his dive and i respect him and his crew for the hard work they did in dahab .... rough weather , the flu and they came up with the record congratulations ....

but i must protest because there was simply "NO TAG" which was the rule ... and on the evening of the record i was sitting with a bunch of freedivers and they were saying "MAY BE IF THE AIDA SAW THE VIDEO THEY WILL NOT ACCEPT IT AS A RECORD" .. i thought ohh shit ...

any way it is accepted by AIDA as the new world record ..... but the rules are not respected .... so something has to be done and i support what william W said... because the main purpose of a ruling party (AIDA in this case) is to be FAIR FOR EVERYONE ....

Cheers

hamza

[CEngelbrecht]

First of all, the disciplinary committee hasn't decided on the issue yet, and I'm a committee member, so maybe I shouldn't even be talking about this. But still...

Human error occurs. We cannot safe guard us completely against this. I don't agree that the rules should change because of a human screwup or misinterpretation.

I understand that tag / no tag can make a marginal difference, particularly at depths like these. I understand that Martin may have gotten an advantage in his dive denied to eg. William T. But, the situation had not been different, if it had been William T. diving i Dahab and not Martin, William T. would then have gotten the wrongful advantage. That's the nature of this screwup, you know what I mean?

The board's intention is that the lanyard and the tag are mandatory, comps or recs. They have their reasons for wanting this philosophy. So, let it stay enforced for any future attempts. That it hasn't in this case, is due to document confusion and human error.

After this, all we can do is make efforts to keep the AIDA judges better updated with current procedures, and try to speed up the updating of documents.

[glennv]

So if for the sake of argument some judges make a "human error" in gratifying a record where the diver pulled himself up 4 times on the rope in a CNF dive (much exaggerated example alert), you would similarly argue not change the rules to allow grabbing (sounds logical) but still allow the record to be valid because it was just human error ??????
I miss the logic in this reasoning.

Either you say it was human error by the responsible judges on site , sorry but no record and we will take every measure possible to make sure it does never happen again, or you say it was no error and change the rules. Any other decision sounds ridiculous to me and makes the DC a laughing matter, which i think is not the intention. We all want the best for all athletes, but stepping over instead of correcting (human) errors is not the way forward for AIDA to be taken serious anymore.

[TheDude]

The only way to resolve this in my opinion will be at the upcoming WC. There all three contestants for this record (might be more of them of course) can measure themselves against each other in same conditions for all. I hope this controversial record will be broken there.

[Will]

Originally Posted by CEngelbrecht

I understand that tag / no tag can make a marginal difference, particularly at depths like these. I understand that Martin may have gotten an advantage in his dive denied to eg. William T. But, the situation had not been different, if it had been William T. diving i Dahab and not Martin, William T. would then have gotten the wrongful advantage. That's the nature of this screwup, you know what I mean?

Hi Chris,
So in your opinion the 'nature of the screw-up' is:

You understand that the error gave Martin an advantage, but you believe that the current WR holder and those who are to attempt the WR in the future should be the ones penalised for this error, rather than Martin, who was involved in causing the error?

I also find it very interesting that you use the adjective 'wrongful' to describe the 'advantage.'

It is important to remember that this is not a case of Trubridge v.s. Stepanek or Trubridge v.s. AIDA.
What is happening here is a growing group of concerned freedivers are trying to hold AIDA to a consistent decision between this attempt and future dives. Since it is something that potentially affects all AIDA freedivers we should ALL have the right to voice our concerns.
It looks like this is a decision that should be made by both disciplinary and technical committees. In court trials, a law can be re-interpreted or even changed to set a precedent for future similar cases. I think that is what needs to happen here.
Since the DC does not accept 'spam' if you are concerned about how this decision may affect future dives then it seems you should address your concern to the technical committee. TC_AIDA@yahoogroups.com
William Trubridge

[efattah]

I respect Martin's great dive, but I have to agree with William T. and William W. on this issue.

I would add several points:
- In 2001 before my 82m WR CW dive, we asked AIDA if we could do the dive without a tag. We were told that the tag was mandatory.
- After hundreds of dives, I will say that for me, in CW with fins, the tag makes about a 3m difference with a mask, and 4-5m difference with no mask or using various types of fluid goggles
- What I mean is that if I am diving with a mask, and I am allowed to announce a depth 3m more (but not be required to grab the tag), then I would announce 3m more and not get a tag, rather than 3m less and get the tag
- I think the difference without fins is even more. So Martin's dive, although excellent, is about equal to no more than 83m - 3m = 80m (w/tag), which is less than the record of 82m (w/tag)
- So in my opinion the dive was less than the current record
- It appears Martin may have been sick (etc.), so he probably has the capacity to do a much deeper depth, but we are not discussing whether he CAN break the record, but whether he DID break the record
- If the AIDA judges are allowed to make errors which affect the performance, then one day we will end up with an unbreakable record
- For example, suppose in the future, the CNF record is 120m, and suppose the record has not been broken for 15 YEARS. It is considered unbreakable. Then one day a diver does the dive with no tag and does 122m. It was a judge's error, but the record counts. In such a situation, the 122m record may never be broken, because everyone else afterwards will have to use a tag.
- Under the current rules, it is possible that the athlete could breathe pure oxygen before his static apnea or dynamic apnea, and do 15 minutes or 300m+, and then the judges could 'make an error' and not realize that the athlete did anything wrong, ratify the record, and then the AIDA board is forced to accept the record. There is NOTHING in the current rules which would allow the AIDA board to over-rule a 15 minute static record done 'accidentally' on pure oxygen.
- I would suggest that the rules should say something like this:

1. The AIDA board can over-rule the decision of the on-site AIDA judges, if and only if the error made by the on-site judges affects the performance of the dive. If the AIDA board over-rules the decisions of the on-site AIDA judges, then AIDA is responsible for refunding the athlete for all expenses related to the record.

This means that for Mifsud, either
A) His record would be accepted (no okay sign would be considered no performance gain)
OR
B) His record would be rejected and he would be refunded thousands of Euros for the event

People may argue that AIDA doesn't have enough money to refund an athlete. Well, then it should get insurance to cover itself for its own errors. And if errors continue to occur, then AIDA becomes irrelevant anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Personally I think the fundamental problem is far more complicated. I think the real problem is that AIDA is a non-profit organization. In my opinion, AIDA should be a for-profit organization, with paid employees, with people who actually accept responsibility for their actions.

[trux]

Please explain me something: Bill Stromberg (the President of AIDA for those who are not aware of it) claimed in the post #62:

Originally Posted by Billextreme

If you do an attempt without lanyard you need at least one safety diver UNDER the plate.

In the same time, Chris Engelbrecht (who is on AIDA's disciplinary committee) just wrote above:

Originally Posted by CEngelbrecht

The board's intention is that the lanyard and the tag are mandatory, comps or recs. They have their reasons for wanting this philosophy. So, let it stay enforced for any future attempts.

Well, I see in the competition rules v11.2 that serve as record rules appendix, this paragraph:

2.2.1
A safety lanyard is mandatory for all depth events.

I do not know if the rule is really valid, or if there is another rule or another appendix of the appendix that overrules this rule, the original rule, or the appendix of them, but however it is, and whatever the real rule is, it means that either the president (Bill) or a member of the committee (Chris) is wrong. And I am afraid that's in fact even much more serious issue than that three international judges (of three present ones) failed at an event. It means there is something really wrong with the rules, if even the very top officials are not able to interpret them properly and equally.

[Walrus]

The rules are a mess with the 3 different documents, still you would think at least one of them has watched the video of a previous record attempt and seen the diver actually use a tag. Martin himself was a judge for a CNF world record dive and he(we) made the athlete grab a tag. Just like to add that I'm really glad there is an AIDA and there are people that volunteer their own free time so that this sport can actually exist. For those that have never done any volunteer work you normally hear more complaints then thanks.
No system and no person is perfect, this particular situation is no doubt tough for the AIDA board and committee members also. I Hope that perhaps this situation can influence the Technical commision to have a review of the tag rule for CNF. My guess is the majority of CNF divers would far prefer to not have to use a tag, performances would be better without them. If it's not a safety issue why force a rule that has no real benefit ?




Cheers,
Wal

[ADR]

Well said Wal - perhaps one of the calmest and most balanced views so far on this thread. I agree 100% with you.

[CEngelbrecht]

Originally Posted by trux

Please explain me something: Bill Stromberg (the President of AIDA for those who are not aware of it) claimed in the post #62:
"If you do an attempt without lanyard you need at least one safety diver UNDER the plate."

In the same time, Chris Engelbrecht (who is on AIDA's disciplinary committee) just wrote above:
"The board's intention is that the lanyard and the tag are mandatory, comps or recs. They have their reasons for wanting this philosophy. So, let it stay enforced for any future attempts."

I'm the one that is wrong. Bill phoned me this morning and reminded me that lanyards are NOT mandatory in records, where tags are. Aparently, the appendices is to be interpreted so that §2 of comp rules 11.2 does not apply to recs rules 5.3, but §3 does. §2 involves the lanyard which doesn't apply to records, §3 involves the tag, which then does apply to records, giving the current appendices.
[...SIGH...]
I'm an AIDA judge myself, and I can't figure it out either. Illustrates the confusion once again, I suppose.

And to William T.: About that the Disciplinary Committee's mail being closed and all; Official complaints should be send to me as the secretary of the committee, and my e-mail address can be found on AIDA's website (or though I'm at the bottom of the DC page, maybe that's not that fortunate).
And also, just that people discuss these topics here on Deeperblue mean that they get through to the AIDA people. Everybody reads Deeperblue, this is your chain of communication to AIDA. We're not the CMAS board, we pee in our wetsuits too.
And Will, please bear with my English, it's not my native language. Don't read to much into individual words I may use wrongfully in times of stress.

Ach! Screw it, I'm going diving...

[jome]

Sidestepping a little but:
-I would like AIDA to remain non-profit and democratic
-However there is no reason an non-profit organization cannot have paid employees or raise funds. It just means the organization pretty much has to spend what it earns.

I feel very strongly that such an organization should remain non-profit, because once you bring "getting rich" into the equation...Well, let's just say I would not like to see that day.

But key persons should/could get paid if the organization can afford it. Currently I don't believe AIDA can, but I see no reason why this couldn't be different in some distant future.

What I would like to see is at least one fully employed person taking care of office tasks (mailing, printing, certifying, money transfers, travel bookings). And perhaps one person responsible for documents, technical work, website administration - that sort of thing. Currently such mundane tasks put a huge strain on the people working on things out of their own free time. This time would be IMO better spent on actual development of things.

I don't know the current budget of AIDA, but I'd be surprised if it's much more than a decent salary for one person - so some changes in fund raising would be needed before that could happen.

So in my ideal world AIDA would have a physical location and offices, with at least a few people working full time on administrative tasks. The president would receive some compensation for his work and the people working in different comissions etc would receive compensations based on the tasks and resources (travels, phonecalls, supplies, time) spent (but no monthly salaries)

But I would also like Star Trek to be reality

These are my personal opinions, not to be taken as opinions of any organization I may be affiliated with.

I'm very sorry that Martin's excellent dive is tainted by such a mistake. Both sides of the argument have very good arguments and it is very hard to take "sides". Luckily I don't need to - but I really don't envy those who are in the position/responsibility to make the decision. I'm pretty sure if Martin was still in Dahab, he'd redo the dive with a tag out of sheer spite

[samdive]

Having spent time on the AIDA Board, I would say that what Simo is suggesting IS realistic and should be done as soon as possible. Not full-time salaries, but at least one paid administrator (maybe not full-time)

AIDA does have the money to do this, and the ability to easily generate a bit more - so far it has always been resisted for some unknown reason

[turtle]

Mods - maybe a new thread should be started on this topic? this sounds like it could be a very promising idea anyhow.
f

[wes]

When I did my 48m CNF US National record in Grand Cayman 2007, (this was a AIDA competition not a record attempt), we used plastic dry wall spatulas for tags as well as lanyards. The lanyard definitely slows you down however I found the tag actually speeds you up if used properly. I tried holding the tag against the inside of my fingers and using it as a paddle to improve my stroke and it worked really well. I asked the judges and event sponsors about this and was it fair and they said yes, at many competitions the CNF divers use the tags in ther hands this way. So maybe from my perspective the tag is a benefit in CNF, of course it depends on what shape and composition the tag is and these apparently are all different for different competitions as ther is no rule that says what a tag must be, shape or size etc. Cheers Wes

[gulfstreamblues]

Could the total expenditure to rewrite AIDA's comp rules in one clear document really be that time consuming/expensive?

I'm not a competitive freediver, but it seems totally rediculous that the rules are that difficult to interpret. If AIDA's goal is to remain the premier governing body for freediving record attempts, then they need to resolve their consistency issues before even more elite divers lose faith in their organization. Are there any plans to revise the rules document? Bueller?....Bueller?.....Bill Stromberg?