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8th Coupe des Dauphines

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.
breathing through your perforated eardrums (not sure it's possible),
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I've got a perforated ear drum at the moment - I've tried but I can't breathe through it! Damn.. that would have been fun!
 
BTW, I see another paragrpah that I did not notice before, so I suppose it is a new addition:
5.5.1
The freediver must have fulfilled the following prerequisite: a breath-hold lasting 20 seconds less than the​
targeted record, at least 2 days preceding the attempt within a maximum of 3 months prior.
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So, if I understand it correctly, it means if Merlini for example did more than 10:12 in Geneva, it wouldn't be recognized as WR, because he did not do similar performance (-20s) 3 months to 2 days before the competition?
 
This rule applicable for record attempts only not for regular competitions.
 
osusim said:
This rule applicable for record attempts only not for regular competitions.
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Isn't each performance targetting a record time a record attempt, regardless if it is done in competition or independently? I see no difference there. Sure he would gain the competition, but according that rule, it would not be recognized as WR. At least I see no reason why the rule should be interpreted differently.
 
Trux,

5.5.1 is for separate WR attempts... (not competitions)

You can not enter a AIDA Competition with a different name than your own, real name (without doing a crime). When you register, you must show your valid passport.

Then I challenge you to find someone going for an Official AIDA Static WR and to cheat without being detected by me ...or any active AIDA judge(s). And then be ready to take the consequences when he/she get caught (!)

have a nice evening
/B
 
trux said:
That's why I believe it should be mandatory to have both ears and the mask totally submerged during the breath-hold.
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Actually, I think that the use of any mask covering nose should be forbidden in competitive freediving. Currently there is no limitation as for the mask goes. The only rule that addresses it is as follows:



The freediver is free to choose his wetsuit, weights and facial equipment.​
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It means you can take the biggest mask existing on the market, or even creating your own one - for example with inner volume of 1/2 liter, liter, or more, well compressible, and pulling from it during your apnea. Of course, it would be too apparent and any reasonable judge would forbid it, but tell me where exactly is the limit? Will I be OK if I take a big scuba mask? Very likely yes. Will I be OK when I take the biggest mask I found in stores? Likely too. The conditions should be the same for everyone, hence only goggles, or no mask at all should be permitted.
 
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Billextreme said:
Then I challenge you to find someone going for an Official AIDA Static WR and to cheat without being detected by me ...or any active AIDA judge(s). And then be ready to take the consequences when he/she get caught (!)
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Thanks for the info, Bill. Just please can you tell me that I interpret your comments properly - are you really persuaded that Merlini's performance was perfectly fine, and with no cheating? Well, of course, I do not speak about the disqualification due to the touching, but if I understand you well, if the touching was not there, you are pretty sure the checks and surveillance were completely sufficient in Geneva to assure Merlini did not cheat in any way.
 
Billextreme said:
I have not seen that dive of him.
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Yes, but you wrote:
Then I challenge you to find someone going for an Official AIDA Static WR and to cheat without being detected by me ...or any active AIDA judge(s). And then be ready to take the consequences when he/she get caught (!)
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I am not accusing you of anything, I am just trying to understand whether you are really suggesting you are persuaded there was no faul play in that case, or whether you are just warning any wannabe cheater about trying to pull out similar trick again.
 
Hi Again,

Normaly when we have athletes going for STA WR in competitions we have at least one A or B judge there to judge him/her. So YES. I trust the judges that they will do(did) a good job.

Sometime in smaller competitions there can be new judges that don't have that much experience yet. BUT for a competition to have WR status, there have to be at least one A or B level judge.

/B
 
I'm a bit late, but I wanted to share my view on this, since I'm an amateur magician myself. I have been training and doing magic for about 4 years, more or less regularly. Actually, I started freediving in the first place after seeing David Blaine's Drowned Alive show, which I was originally watching only for his magic tricks. You might have various opinions on Blaine and his stunts, but I owe him a commendation for giving me the inspiration to start freediving.

Anyway, I have watched this David Merlini's (never heard of him before) "stunts" and there is no doubt he is cheating, at least in the Guinness World Record attempt and some other breath-holds I found on youtube. The fact that Uri Geller was his coach or something on that record attempt pretty much ruined the last bits of credibility it might otherwise have had. :hmm

I found a TV series called Breaking The Magician's Code, which reveals the secrets of many magic tricks, including "Holding Breath Under Water For 18 Minutes". That episode aired just a couple of weeks ago. Breaking the Magician's Code: Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fortunately, it is on Google Video (at least for now). EDIT: Well, it's not there anymore, but I found it here: There is a huge amount of bubbles for misdirection and to cover something he doesn't want the spectators to see. And he's wearing a hood, where it would be very easy to hide a tube or something else.

In the Guinness show he is not wearing a hood to cover the tube, but he is still obviously breathing somehow, judged from the amount of air he is exhaling. Still, a O2-capsule inserted inside his body sounds very far-fetched to me. If there is something I have learned from magic tricks, it is that they are almost always much simpler than they appear. As you can see if you watch a couple of those Breaking The Magician's Code episodes. The solutions are very clever but usually still simple. Of course, there are also complicated and even very technical ones, but I haven't ever stumpled upon something like inserting a capsule inside your body to perform a trick. It is possible, but very unlikely. Most likely it is some clever variation of the basic method showed in the Magician's Code, or something we haven't even thought of. Maybe it has something to do with holding his hands behind his neck as he does on Guinness show, or something totally different.

From the Coupe des Dauphines performance it is even harder to say, at least on ground of the video, which only showed the last couple of minutes, but I think it is possible he was cheating somehow. Though I can't think of any easy method of doing that, at least if he was away from the pool edge the whole time of his performance. The position of his head really looks weird, but I don't think he is breathing through his eyes or ears or anything like that. If he is cheating, it is presumably something much simpler. If he was leaning on the pool side at some point, he could e.g. keep his hands on the edge and actually take breaths by bringing his nose or mouth just above the surface very briefly while covering his head and face with contracted arms (which is a pretty usual position at the end of the static by many real freedivers). I think Bill Strömberg has actually demonstrated this method by doing something like 14 minute static in front of official AIDA judges. We watched a video of that method during Judge course in Sharm last year and it is very hard to spot. But again, it can be something totally different. There is also a slight chance he did that 8.36 static without cheating, but the fact that he had already cheated on Guinness World Record attempt doesn't really make me want to trust him.


I found this rule concerning this kind of situations:
3.1.5
Other performance-enhancing products are forbidden. In the case of any doubt the judge has the power to
request a doping test or other means of investigation.

I don't know if that really helps much, but at least the judge has the right do something if s/he thinks an athlete is cheating. Like request some other professional illusionist/magician, who can more easily expose cheating, to act as judge's assistant.


The thing is, I really have a problem with this kind of magicians who act unethically. Of course, magic is all about cheating and misleading spectators, but people still know that the things the magician does are just tricks. Sometimes very clever and impressive tricks, but nonetheless, just tricks.

When a magician crosses that line and claims that he is doing something more than just tricks and some people really believe him, the situation isn't so ethical and funny anymore. This is easy especially in mentalism, which is an area of magic that deals with tricks done on spectators' minds, like mind reading, precognition, psychokinesis and so on. They are just tricks too, but they appear to be more like real magic. And if you tell your audience that those kind of things you do are real, not just tricks, there are many who are going to actually believe you.

Psychics/mediums are one form of mentalists who have crossed the line. They use simple tricks, like cold reading, but then claim, for example, that they are really talking to the dead and can transmit messages from people's dead relatives. And make huge amounts of money by lying and taking advantage of persons who are ready to do anything to ease the pain of missing their loved ones. Another example are illusionists like Merlini's "coach" on that Guinness show, Uri Geller, who was a huge success in the 70's, doing all kinds of basic mentalism tricks (bending spoons, reading minds etc.) but claiming they were supernatural phenomena. And crowds believed him, he was even able to fool scientists. And make money, of course.

Merlini's record attempts aren't maybe as serious matter, but he has clearly crossed the line, at least on freediver's perspective, by claiming to do real world records while in reality he is just cheating. It can be very harmful for athletes who are doing it for real and maybe even as their profession.


Oh, sorry for the ultimately long reply. Maybe I should write a book about this.
 
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Reactions: H.Balázs, BennyB and trux
I agree with Mikko. James Bond's movie stile of special equipments unlikely to applicable here.
I guess the easiest way to help judges is to set up some undewater cameras for reviewing face of an athlete during performance. Olympus provides now budget solutions for 200-300 euro with small and heavy portable cameras. One or more cameras can be just putted on a pool's bottom lens up. For record attempts such thing is not big deal. At least "Bill's stile cheating" will be easy to verify.
 
u/w cameras have been used for example at Lignano 2008 for the dynamics, actually they were shown live to the public and it was great. It would be good to have them more often, and they could help for static too.

About Merlini in Geneva:
-he was cheating (general opinion)
-the judges did not see the cheating (fact)
-AIDA rules and A-B judges are sufficient to catch cheaters (Bill)

 
Why not "pack" pure O2 air into your belly +45 min before top? And than bring it up later? Many people have no problem drinking a 1/2 Litre of beer.
Not doing any stretches or dynamic warm up movements could indicate this.

The 20min show with so much air exhaling, makes me wonder indeed of a time released O2 pressured swallowed capsule. Everybody knows performers have swallowed al kinds of stuff, including swords... The Escape to the ambulance was a good opportunity to secretly bring the O2 container out, while adding extra the drama.

Does anyone know something on the training he had? Did he do any O2 tables' ? (that would make cheating harder too).

I agree with Mikko, Magicians should have and show more respect to athletic performances.

Love, Courage and Water,

Kars
 
Okay, here's a new test for suspicious breath holds. After the comp is over, and everyone is standing around talking and shooting the breeze, judges appoint some volunteers to sidle up to suspects and suddenly clamp giant weights around their waists and push them into the pool. Trained, real athletes could probably last 4-5 minutes at least on a breath hold with no warning. After all the stress would strengthen the dive response. Cheaters would likely black out in shock and fear of being discovered. No warning, no chance for secret stashes of 02.

Add to AIDA rules? :martial

Silliness aside, I think a magician who is adept at sleight of hand, distraction, misdirection and working with an assistant could easily deceive a whole crowd.

As an example, there is a magician freediver in Seattle, Vaclav Havlik, who knocked our socks off with a series of tricks that gave us chills because they were so unexplainable. For example, on a common kitchen table, he flipped over playing cards from five feet away. No strings, nothing that we could tell. It was bonkers. And he is a professional but not high profile by any means. So whatever he did - however he set it up - no doubt a good magician could do the same with a breath hold deception.

What seems sloppy is all the bubbles and the movement. Unless that was specifically for misdirection, it only served to arouse the suspicion of freediver athletes who seen many performances in competition and practice. So not a very well researched stunt, if it is indeed a stunt. :head

Also, exhaling like that would imply an over abundance of 02/air. If he had a compressed 02 cylinder or something, wouldn't the smart thing to do be to hide a few small exhalations in the struggle phase of the static (again, more research would help) and then sip the 02 then? Or with slight of hand take a few mini-breaths during the last minute of the breathe-up? It doesn't take much 02 to do 9 minutes. I know that for a fact.

What was his in-water warm up like?
 
More or less same article, but one more picture here.

This was not an AIDA competition, so "cheating" is allowed - like the O2 breathing by Blaine, Sietas, Genoni and more recently Putignano. Understanding how exactly he did it could help in understanding what he did at the AIDA competition in Geneva, and help avoiding such cases in the future.

I am a puzzled though that this event didn't receive much media coverage, unlike those of the people I mentioned above. Perhaps Merlini himself didn't want to advertise it too much? Maybe he is preparing something else?
 
rxcnc2 said:
More or less same article, but one more picture here.
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I tried to find a video of this his latest illusionist stunt, but did not manage. If anyone of you finds it, please let us know - I'd love to see whether Merlini goes on releasing bubbles all the time too, like during his other shows.

I find the most funny, how he claims he is able to hold that long because he started to be interested about it at age of 5, that he spent 30% of the time in water since, and that he can perfectly relax and control his heart beat If you look at his TV shows, or at the AIDA competition video, you can see that he is everything but relaxed - he is totally contracted, in a unnatural position, apparently rather nervous, does not stop moving, and releasing the bubbles. I'd be interested to see a HR monitor attached to him - I would not be surprised if his HR does not fall too far below 100 bpm all the time.

Still, although he is just an illusionist, it is quite disturbing not having him disqualified for a proven reason. With his claims the breath-holds are real thing, and his records real ones too, he makes a lot of damage to serious athletes, I believe. We already saw posts here on DB, where people asked why the freediving records were so low when a Merlini could hold his breath for over 20 minutes (without oxygen).
 
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