Away with the rules

Sebastian

Good article. Well thought out. Please allow a few comments.

Observation and experience seems to indicate that the 20 seconds is close to minimum and any attempt to hurry things up can lead to problems. This is based on CB where a few hook breaths and a calm SP easily takes over 15 seconds for an experienced competitor on a sub max training dive.

The other comment is about safety divers. It can be long hard work and I have trouble switching from training safety to competition safety and back again. Having the judges make the call might work, at least in the pool.

Since USAA copied Canada and Sweden, I do like your rules far more than the present ones.

Aloha
Bill

I mostly agree with you. Definately I feel the SP should be stricter and I have always felt so even when I've been rooting for the new roles. Shorter time and "only once in right order" should be obvious improvements.

"DQ obvious sambas" still leaves some room for subjectivity, but not as much as before. And you can always protest if you feel wronged.

Or maybe simply "safety diver can only interviene if airways touch water", but I'm sure that would lead to serious accidents before long...:/

I think a protest should be handled so that let's say N judges view a video and vote on it. No one judge, no matter how powerful, should be able to make that decision alone.

I would leave the 20 sec, but agree with the rest.
except the official coach intervention. if you don't let your coach shout mask! on you, your friend in the crowd will. and you cannot DQ an athlete just because somebody in the crowd shouted mask..

juro

In the beginning I thought that the SP was perfect, but seeing it in "action" has shown some obvious problems.

The 20 sec ARE to long, since it IS possible to have quite a big LMC and still make the SP. My work in the AIDA Technical Commision will be to make is easier to work with.
My idea is to limit it to 15 sec wich would DQ the big LMC´s. The specific order of mask, OK-sign and the "I´m OK" will need to be discussed further for me to have a clear idea.
An interesting discussion is WHERE to surface. We have seen some athletes surfacing and putting their bodyweight on the edge of the pool to avoid sinking in case of a LMC. This needs attention.

About the scilent coaching...
It has always been legal for a coach to give verbal coaching, and hitting on this seems almost like a sad excuse for some of the belivers of the old LMC rule to go back to something that ABSOLUTELY didn´t work!!! Verbal coaching has NEVER been mentioned as a problem before...

I note that there has not been nearly as many protests and discussions about about disqualifications since the introduction of the SP. This indicates that we are going in the right direction.

Best regards...

Peter P

I mostly agree with Sebastian.

The main issue which bothers me about the surface protocol today:
The original idea of having to comply with a predefined set of three tasks (mask-off / ok-sign / verbal-ok) has been subverted by

a) the fact that the athlete can do any of the three tasks and still is fine if only there is the right sequence once
b) the ok-sign and the verbal-ok can be done simultanously

In my understanding the surface protocol loses its sense if a disorientated athlete comes up and gives the ok sign first, then at one point finally has got his mask off and then is beeing cryed at "OK-SIGN!!" and then simultanously gives the sign and repeats "I'm ok"...
Some people argued, that it was against commonsense not to be allowed to sign ok and say "I'm ok" at one time. Of course they are right. But they dont understand the idea of the protocol. The purpose of the SP should be to check if the athlete is clear enough to comply with the predefined task.

I agree -15 seconds would be enough to fulfill the SP, silent coaching in my point of view is not enforcable (excited spectators yelling..., the athlete would be punished for a spectators action at the extreme).

During the Worlds in Renens I saw many nasty situations with safety personel looking at nearly drowning athletes and waiting for someone else taking the decision to intervent. Is it that hard to provide safety? Is it only the judge beeing able give sign for an intervention? A trained safety diver should be prepared fo an intervention with the right body position and with a hand just underneath the surface where the chin of the athlete is. I have seen situations where the advise of the judge to grab the athlete came to late the airways beeing submerged already...

So: Let us stick to the sequence mask / ok-sign / verbal-ok and accept it only once in that specific order within a limited amount of time (15" should be fair enough). And provide good and trained safety divers.

Yours
Pat

I feel a general consensus is being reached on this subject, most unusual in freediving
We have seen the surface protocol in action and most feel that the idea is good but we need to tighten things up a little. I have spoken to and read the comments of many freedivers and agree with those above.
Surface Protocol should be done in a strict order, Mask, Signal followed by Verbal OK. The protocol is there to prove that the athlete is fully conscious and making sure the order is followed is a good way of showing that.
Cutting the time down to 15 seconds should not allow enough time for a small LMC and correct protocol as I believe the recovery time from the LMC will make it very difficult for an athlete to compose themselves to give a strict surface protocol.
Verbal coaching is impossible to outlaw because, as pointed out, any one can shout from the crowd and as we saw in the World Pool Championships, every body yells Mask!
I really hope that the AIDA board can review the situation and that this time all AIDA nationals will support the revised rules. We are a young sport and in order to grow we need to make things simple for spectators to follow. It is vitally important that we move forward together and that our sport evolves.
BTW Nice work Sebastian but looking at your footage some shakes etc are open to interpretation and it is very difficult to get a good shot every time as proved by your experience in Switzerland.

..good points !!! ..and I'm all ear's.

I have an idea to let the atlete come up without help from the wall in static (and maybe dynamic). In static we could add a rope 50 cm out from the wall where the athlete could hold his hands as a guide, but when he try to use as suport it will sink. :blackeye

...? öhh

Bill

Hi Bill,

at least for me I do wear a 7mm wetsuit which has significant buoyancy. For getting upright to the standing position at the end of my statics I need the wall for support. A line like the one you described would probably not give enough support. That means that I would either lose the last phase of my statics completely and have a hard time to surface altogether, or i'd be forced to wear a suit that has less buoyancy (and that would leave me freezing).
In Dynamic you have to surface without help from the wall anyway, and having no resting point after that would mean that you would have to swim (eventually with a mono without changin position poolwise and keeping your airways above the surface at the same time) with a neckweight on. That does not sound like fun for me even without having done a max :t , apart from the fact that the guys and gals with a heavy neckweight would have a serious disadvantage.

Just my 2cc, as always.

Veronika

Veronika said:

Hi Bill,

at least for me I do wear a 7mm wetsuit which has significant buoyancy. For getting upright to the standing position at the end of my statics I need the wall for support. A line like the one you described would probably not give enough support. That means that I would either lose the last phase of my statics completely and have a hard time to surface altogether, or i'd be forced to wear a suit that has less buoyancy (and that would leave me freezing).
In Dynamic you have to surface without help from the wall anyway, and having no resting point after that would mean that you would have to swim (eventually with a mono without changin position poolwise and keeping your airways above the surface at the same time) with a neckweight on. That does not sound like fun for me even without having done a max :t , apart from the fact that the guys and gals with a heavy neckweight would have a serious disadvantage.

Click to expand...

I agree. I find it too difficult to surface without holding onto the wall when I am doing statics in a buoyant suit. It also feels better to be holding onto something towards the end of a max static.

Swimming on the surface with weights on after a max dynamic doesn't sound good either!

Lucia