This is the message we received from AIDA International:
"To all freedivers of the world ......
For one time, we can have a common fight
It's Claude Chapuis from France
May be you know it or not :
- CMAS will organize in 2003 in Tunisy it's first freediving competition
which will be called : CMAS freediving world championship
- The idea for CMAS is to find an alternative to the spearfisching world
championship that CMAS doesn't want to organize anymore
- For this reason, CMAS's politicians are ready to do all things (even
if it's stupid)
- A freediving competition is for them the best mediatic solution .....
- The problem is that they didn't ask to freedivers (IAFD, Apnea
Academy, FREE, AIDA, National AIDA, freediving associations, athletes,
YOU ...)
- They decided to take a sort of strange stupid dangerous competition
idea proposed by strange guys (but not freedivers) and they decided to
organise
their competition quickly
I've seen the rules of the competition, I've seen the President of CMAS
(A Ferrero) to explain him and his friends (P Dernier - Belgium ; P
Mercier - Monaco) that
this competition was stupid and dangerous, that their funny CMAS's
judges, fast certified, would be not ready, that the Rotary's club
persons
in Tunisy who would like to organize the competiution would not be the
best persons to support the competition, that Tunisian scubadivers and
freedivers
(who?) couldn't' be well prepared, that many accident could arrive
because of the stupid project and rules
What is this competition in few words :
- individual competition
- no pool, just the sea
- for CMAS, depth is dangerous, so the depth is limited to 35 meters
- 3 different levels of athletes for this competition (15m , 25m ; 35m)
- stopwatchers take your time (chronometred)
- you go down (for example 35m), try to make a square (maximum distance
60m, take the last tag you can take, and go up (if you arrive to the
surface)!
How the security is made?
no precisions, just funny propositions which are stupid and which
demontrate that :
If freediving competitions are not organized first by freedivers but by
politicians, many accidents will arrive
Freediving must be thought by freedivers for freedivers
In an attached doc (I know for some list attached doc are impossible) a
small picture of the project
(write me if you want to have the picture or more details)
MY ASK :
I WOULD LIKE TO EXPLAIN TO THE PRESIDENT OF CMAS THAT THEIR PROJECT IS
DANGEROUS AND STUPID
AND THAT NO FREEDIVERS IN THE WORLD TAKE THEIR COMPETITION FOR A SERIOUS
IDEA
IF YOU SHARE THE SAME FEELING THAN ME, WRITE ME TO GIVE YOUR OPINION AND
SIGN WITH
YOUR NAME AND COUNTRY
I'LL SEND ALL YOUR MESSAGE TO THE CMAS
Claude Chapuis
Nice
France"