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[News] Famed Magician In Freediving World Record Stunt

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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Haydn said:
I wonder which 'body' has most authority in judging a world record. Guiness or Aida? Is Aida likely to become impotent if David claims a world record and the record gets published by Guiness.

I had a correspondance with Guiness about the attempts of Stig,Yamina and me, and they said that they are refering to AIDA for freediving worldrecords.

Peter P
 
But Eric...How does this fasting-thing work??? I could not imagine anyone going for 10 days without eating ANYTHING!!!

Peter P
 
So he will atempt the breathold right after the week on scuba. It shoulnt be hard to let him breath oxygen before going off airsuply...
 
Well, as I stated before, breathing even compressed air at depth changes things significantly. At 2.5m we're talking almost a 20% more oxygen stores (someone correct me if I'm wrong)...

It's obvious that it will not be "official" in whatever sense we think about it (to me official=AIDA). But still a very interesting stunt! It's hard to say what will happen. In optimum conditions, he could do well over 10 minutes, I suspect (with the fasting + compressed air). If there is "cheating" involved (o2), it could be anything.

Or then his body will be so stressed from the "living underwater" part that he will not do anything spectacular. But given that this is a show, I doubt they'll let that happen.

Should be interesting watch for any freediver, not to mention the layman.
 
It doesn't bother me that Blain is trying to hold his breath as it doesn't bother me he's not inviting aida, but what does bother me why is he comparing this to the 8'58'' record. Why not the official guinnes O2 record that is 14'15'' as the atempt won't be an regular atempt and in my opinion there will be some tempering with O2.
 
Peter P said:
But Eric...How does this fasting-thing work??? I could not imagine anyone going for 10 days without eating ANYTHING!!!

Peter P

After hearing about Sam Still's 10-day fasting method, I went for 6 days without food (just water) in June, prior to the Monaco challenge. However my mistake was that I kept working. It appears that for it to work, you have to basically do nothing except rest, sleep or meditate, otherwise you catabolize too much protein from your muscles and get way too acidic. My breath-holds decreased during the fast. However, 24 hours after coming off the fast, I set my all time 'wet' pb of 7'57".

My friend and diver Lukas Ircha recently did 41 days without food (just water) in Panama, but that was for health, not performance.

Another friend of mine, Vania Kaady in Oregon, did seven days without food OR WATER, followed by 33 more days with just water...!

So my 6-day fast and Sam's 10-day fasts don't seem like much!

One thing I noticed is that I would get a huge amount of work done each day -- no time spent cooking, eating, cleaning, food shopping, digesting, etc...
 
So EF, would fasting be recommended before doing a serious CB attempt???
 
I don't think an extended fast would be good for any diving event which involves physical effort. The main benefit is lowered basal metabolism, which has a large effect in static, but the expense of this gain is general weakness, not good for physical exertion. Might work for an extremely deep no-limits dive, where no exertion is required, just a long breath-hold.
 
One more basic problem with such apnea stunts is the fact that that's what stays in peoples' minds as the real thing. So next time Tom, Sam, or any other freediver approaches a major sponsor (outside our little world) and quotes their achievements and world ranking they will be faced with an answer along the lines: "you have the world static record? I am sure I show this magician guy David holding his breath longer on CNN" - then try and explain to them about aida rules and anounced performances and urin tests...
Unfortunately I came across such a case when I approached a media sponsor and they quoted a CNF attempt (which was not under AIDA or anybody else's rules and resulted in a BO) carried out at a dive festival as the World Record (thats what the organiser's claimed).
Unfortunately reality is whats on the tube these days and its a pitty if the efforts of real athletes are made to look commonplace with cheap tricks (now that I think of it even with expensive tricks :D)

Stavros Kastrinakis
Greece
 
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A point common to many of the objecters to the Blaine show is that it allegedly diminishes the benefit these objecters will derive from freediving.

A counterargument to this, which I've heard down at the bar, is that this boils down to sour grapes about losing in the competition for economic benefits from freediving.

Interesting debate.

Would anyone care to elaborate upon the objections to David Blaine's show, and follow through with a proposal for actions to be taken, in this forum or in an article for the Freediving section ?
 
The counterargument 'boils dry' when you consider how much this show is abusing AIDA and its athletes by using media muscle to cover over the fact that the persons involved either:
- can't be bothered
- are too scared
...to use the AIDA rules that should naturally come part and parcel with the AIDA WR (which they are using, like it or not).
Tell that one down at 'the bar.'
Actions to be taken: organise an attempt at the 'David Blaine WR' after he sets it, then use the media attention as a platform to expose the difference between such stunts and real world records.
 
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