Hello,
Here is a couple of pictures from Lignano if somebody may have not seen them yet:
http://freediving.pictures.fi/kuvat/2011/Lignano/ (more will follow soon)
And a quick comment about the sleeping Aida Board (in earlier comments in this thread). Please remember to login at Aida website to receive Aida news in your email automatically. Please read also the Aida Board meeting news at that same site to get a picture what kind of work has been done since new Board started. I guarantee that at least I have not been sleeping at all. Neither I did not sleep in Lignano while taking care of the results, judging and the PR-stuff
And a bit off topic too:
Aida votes Education officer, Technical officer and Aida president positions before the end of this year. So I´m willing to encourage you all to find some good candidates. I´m a pretty sure that Aida competition regulation will not change itself. We need an active Aida technical committee to make it happen (please read Aida statutes at Aida website where this responsibility is mentioned). Please consider also on the possibility that the current Aida president may be willing to step aside from that position in very near future. I heard this from the Aida president itself some time ago.
Last but not least couple of
personal opinions:
I have been against grabbing rule and touch rule since they were added in the Aida competition regulations. Every freediver knows that we teach grabbing from the beginning of the freediving career for everybody for a good safety reasons, also in the freediving education world wide. Although couple of people has been willing to write, and keep, that stupid grab rule in the Aida competition rulebook for a reason or another.
Touch rule is the same. The idea in the rule is a pretty much ok (in good old days some teams tried to hide BO and PBMM symptoms behind cheering with the teams) but the way how the rules has been written does not support this sport at all. In a clean dives, like Goran´s case, there should not be any excuses to disqualify the great performances just because somebody was willing to congratulate a great athlete who deserved it. Or in static apnea where the coach may keep his/her hand on the athlete back when the athlete will end his/her performance. In most of the cases the athlete does not even feel this touch.
br,
- kimmo, or president of Aida