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BOs in competitions resulting in a ban?

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.

Should BO result in a temporary ban in competitions?

  • Bad idea

    Votes: 15 45.5%
  • Good idea

    Votes: 9 27.3%
  • Maybe, but needs work

    Votes: 9 27.3%

  • Total voters
    33
I guess better ban the person for life and cancel all records in the past. We've got too many recods. And in a case of organizer fault, ban the organizer for life also.
jome, did you sleep well?

Well...No, I think that would be too harsh. But everyone is entitled to their opinnion and I value your suggestion. That's why I start these debates, to get discussion and ideas flying. There is always room for improvement.

I do sleep very well at least on those days I actually have the time, thank you :)
 
Generally a good idea, I'm more for a ban in allowing them not too compete for the rest of the day, due body recovery reasons etc.

As Naiad says, 0 points for your efforts should be a good discoragement,
or generally giving the impression it's not a good idea.
As in all my years of freediving comps, it's been effective enough I believe.
Even more so if your part of a team, as your not going to be a popular...
But this sport is out about finding your limits, sometimes that line gets crossed in an effort to explore that, but I'm always 100% confident knowning (if) it happens, safety is always at hand under the rules.

With various reasons for blackouts, adding this to the rules will be
a complicated task involving a (edit) debate covering every scenario & ban ammount.
 
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Sorry, but this proposal is totally unnecessary. We don't need a repeated new-rules-discussion. We are no bureaucrats. The sport is called "FREE"-Diving!

In the current situation the organizer can ban any competitor if he announces with too much risk (remember cyprus 2004).
If the competitor has a bad blackout, the organizer can ask the doctor and can ban the athlet for the next round (so I was banned after my BO on the first day at the tripledepth 2005 for the next day - this was hard for me, but I had to accept this.)

greetings, wolle
 
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Reactions: naiad
I agree. That's what I like about freediving - that I can do whatever I want! (but I think I am staying reasonably safe!)
 
weird - we were just talking about this last night and now i see this thread.

This happens in many sports - Rugby and Football in the UK both have bans for getting knocked up - it gets longer the 1st, 2nd times you get knocked out and then on the 3rd time, you are banned for the rest of the season

It's not a bad suggestion - except there are not really enough competitions to make it really much of a problem for most people. Maybe one for the future
 
Sorry, but this proposal is totally unnecessary. We don't need a repeated new-rules-discussion. We are no bureaucrats. The sport is called "FREE"-Diving!
Sorry, Wolle, but this is a complete demagogy. If you want it "FREE", why not allowing LMC and BO? Why having any surface protocol at all? Is it really the direction you want to see it going?

I totally agree with Jome, that today many freedivers consider blackouts and sambas for something normal and do not bother blacking out at almost every competition. And I agree that there is definitely something to do about it. Unfortunately as I mentioned at the top, and as Samdive notes in the previous post too, the ban wouldn't have the desired effect, because most people simply do not compete often enough. And I admit that making the ban months long wouldn't be justified.
 
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Well I for one don't like the term freediving anyway. I think apnea or apnea diving are much more descripitive...

People always get hung up with the different definitons of "free". Like it's not really freediving if you own property and don't have dreadlocks or something.

To me it is just diving without breathing equipment without any elaborate philosophical constructions. There's diving with breathing apparatus, and then there is apneadiving. Both are wonderful things that enable partly the same and partly different experiences.

Now of course there is the "making love to mother earth" side of it I also enjoy, but I don't see how a competitive sport could be totally without rules?

Anyway, I guess the world is not ready yet for this :) But at least in every competition I organize a BO will result in shutting out of the rest of the comp...
 
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I totally agree with Jome, that today many freedivers consider blackouts and sambas for something normal and do not bother blacking out at almost every competition.
I also agree with Jome that if this is happening, it is wrong. If someone obviously doesn't care about blacking out, that is the wrong attitude, and they should not be competing. I have met some freedivers (thankfully very few) who have a 'couldn't care less' attitude to their own safety, and sometimes that of others. IMO, they should be banned from training as well as competing.

If I entered a competition and accidentally had a blackout or LMC because of factors I could not have predicted, and I was banned from competing for weeks or months as a result, I would certainly not compete ever again, at least not with the same organisation that banned me. I would see this as a waste of money and a denial of personal freedom.

I think a good analogy is falling off a bike. If I went mountain biking on rough ground every day, and occasionally I fell off the bike and got a few minor injuries, I think this is an acceptable risk, and I would be very unhappy to be banned because of this. If I had accidents on most days, it would be time to think of changing my style or attitude, or taking up another sport!

Lucia
 
I have never completed and I think the idea of banning someone because of a blackout is totally baked (or half baked if that works).

No one wants to black out and if they do its too bad for them. The idea of a competition is its a place where you can push yourself in a very safe and controlled environment. Thats the idea with many competitions like downhill ski racing. People sometimes die from falling in downhill ski races and very frequently hurt themselves very badly, do we ban them because they fell, no.
Saying I am banning you because of something you did means to me they have done something wrong. I don't think blacking out in a competiton is wrong.

Cheers Wes
 
Well, if the skier had for example broken his leg on the last spill, but would still insist on going down again, hell yeah I would ban him...

I guess not everyone sees BO the same way, but to me it means that persons ability to dive physiologically is severly impaired for at least the remainder of the day, in fact several days. If someone dives again right after suffering a BO, the risks are magnified. He is no longer "just a competitor" from the organizer point of view, but a risk and a liability.

I guess 2 weeks is a little much, and more of a punishment than about safety. But I'd say at least 24h competition ban for BO is more than reasonable...

Well, the time may not me right for this discussion now, but I would be very surprised if in 2-3 years something like this is not in the rules...
 
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Well I think its an excellent point Jome that from the perspective of the organizer you have an obligation to make it safe for everyone. Many freediving clubs have a rule that if you BO then you are done diving for the day and some have a rule that if there is a blackout then everyone is done for the day. This is not for punishment, but rather because (I believe) there have been cases of near accidents from dives right after BO's where everyone is shaken up and not really recovered and this compromises the saftey support so the whole group stops. This is all about the safety of all the participants. There is it sems a credible argument that the organizers have an interest to limit the number of BO's as if 50% of the divers BO it would be very tough on the safety support crew to provide good safety if there were 50 divers going down and they had to deal with 25 BO's.

Not sure what this means to the argument and rule, I guess that there are different things to manage for, making it safe for everyone, making it safe for someone who does BO (and maybe has impaired sense of safety/judgement)

Seems like to have a 24 hour rest rule makes sense where they could still compete the next day though they may have to complere late in the day instead of bright and early the next morning.

Cheers Wes
 
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