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Competition equipment: do we ban technological innovation or embrace it?

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.
Since this is a bit off-topic but nevertheless inportant, I started a new thread here: Separate rankings for 25m and 50m pools, where I suggest that dynamics with and without fins should have their own rankings for 25 m pools and for 50 m pools.

The main argument is that there is a difference of several percents in the results, depending if you do DNF or DYN in short or long pool. Just like there is in swimming and finswimming. Therefore in competitive swimming and finswimming there are separate rankings and records for short course and long course, and therefore that should be the case with freediving too.
 
Reactions: Jouskari

What do you think about trux's last post?
 
Well, in this case I think it's about the good old "lies, damned lies, and statistics".

I didn't analyse all the divers in Trux's comparison between Lignano 2011 WC results and the competitors' old PBs, but I'll point out those divers whose past DNF results and general performance level I'm most familiar with, and who are the most experienced and most consistent performers.

First, Frederic Sessa did huge 207m DNF in Lignano for gold medal. His previous PB is shown as 168m, but already in 2009 Århus he did very easy 180m+ DNF in the qualifications only to mess up the surface protocol and get a DQ, because he was used to the CMAS SP at the time. His true level at that time was probably around 200m DNF. One year after that Sessa did DYN WR, around 30m more than he did in Århus. Thus, two years after Århus in Lignano his DNF level in 25m pool was probably around 225m, and he would have very likely done the world record, if the comp was held in short pool. Instead, he did around 10% worse than that in the long pool.

Kathryn Nevatt did 148m in long pool, while her PB was 159m in short pool. 7% decrease in long pool.

Rune Sorensen had a PB of 200m DNF, but he had bad samba and 193m in long pool, around 3% worse.

Goran Colak did 194m DNF in long pool, while his PB was 200m in the short pool. In DYN his level was 10% higher than before and he did a WR. Thus, his DNF level was probably also higher and he could have done more than 200m, if the competition was in a short pool. 3% (or even 10% as speculated) decrease in result in long pool.

Bjarte Nygård's dive ended in BO around 190m, while his PB was 199m from two years before. His DYN level had stayed around the same or slightly improved.

William Trubridge did 174m in Lignano, which was exactly the same as his PB from two years before. However, his general level was higher in 2011 than 2009, so he would probably done more in short pool. Speculated decrease in long pool.

I did 166m in long pool in Lignano, while my PB was 181m from two years before. At the same time my DYN had improved around 30m, and I was definitely in 175m+ DNF shape in short pool. Around 10% decrease in long pool.

I'm very familiar with the Finnish national team and their level. Everyone in the team (me, Mikko N, Johanna, Antero, Veera) did around 10% worse in the Lignano's 50m pool than our level in 25m pool was at the time.
Mikko N also regularly trains in both 25m and 50m pools and does lots of max dives. His training PB and consistent performance level in 25m pool is 150m+ DNF, while in 50m pool his PB and consistent level is around 140m. Around 10% decrease in the long pool.
Around two weeks ago we had Finnish Championships, and the DNF was in 50m pool. Everyone performed worse, usually around 10% worse, than their level was in the 25m pool, while DYN results were the same or slightly better than everyone's current level in 25m pool. And that was even though DNF and DYN were on the same day with 3 hours between, DNF first, and everybody was tired in the DYN.

For the fact that the statistics for Lignano seem to indicate that the 50m pool didn't affect the results, it probably comes from the fact that the less experienced divers had improved their general level much more than the experienced ones I just analyzed. In other words, if the Lignano DNF comp was held in 25m pool, the increases in PBs would have been much greater.
 
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Reactions: Simos and Kars

It's interesting they banned them for so long. They both seem like innovations that have enhanced the sport.

Do you know what AIDA's rationale for banning fluid goggles and neck weights was back in the day?
 
I guess safety and availability (to prevent an unfair advantage).
 
being a complete tyro myself ......... aren't there classifications already?

* No-gear record
* Sled record

etc?
 
watts said:
If you weight up with a suit you can do 25 in no strokes. Not quite swimming.
Click to expand...
Prove it. I was the only one at the last WCs doing DNF lengths with less than 6 strokes in the 50m pool and I've never been close to doing a push-off only length in any equipment. I'll believe your claim when I see it.


As for the 25 v 50 thing, we just don't have very many 50m pools here and even fewer that will let us train or compete in them. Saying that we can't set records here because of our pool situation puts us under even more strain. As it stands, records here cost so much more because of our isolation and the cost of getting international judges over. Do we really want to disadvantage people that way or to create even more records? What about fresh and salt water records? We used to have those. With and without suit? Bifins and stereo fins? All of a sudden we have 40 world records and potentially as many people claiming to be the world's best. I'd prefer to see it reduced, not increased.
 
I think the number of disciplines depends on the size of the number of participants, and the ambitiousness of them.

A governing body can help to balance the amount of disciplines in order to be able to market the sport to the world audience and sponsors.
 
We should also have a cold freshwater record. It's harder in the cold, you see.
 
I know, I also 'compete' in the cold against those spoiled Dahab divers.. :ban
 

You could say most of those things about competitive swimming too. Or finswimming.
Also, there aren't that many 50m pools in Finland either, closest is around 100km away from where I live. I haven't ever had a change to regularly train in a 50m pool.
And if I'm not completely mistaken, I have already seen videos of Dave set a DYN WR in 50m pool in NZ and DNF WR in 25m pool in NZ. How does it become more difficult to organize if he does them the other way around?

Almost everyone is using good monofins and suits, so currently there is not much need to start own disciplines here.
However, I'm not against separating bifins and monofins to their own disciplines, as is the case in finswimming, but it would have a different effect on competitions than separating 25m and 50m pools. It would add more disciplines to every competition, since now there would be four disciplines to do, regardless of the pool. Usually the competitions are one or two days long, so it would be hard if you wanted to do static, dynamic without fins, dynamic with monofin and dynamic with bifins.
With 25m and 50m pool rankings, there would still be only three disciplines per every normal pool comp.

With fresh and salt water records, well, I'm not against it. At the moment I'm not very much for it either. There are not so many good and deep fresh water spots, so breaking, for example, the fresh water CNF record would become hugely just about finding the best place to do it. In a sense, this is already the case with all depth disciplines, but fresh water ranking would greatly amplify the problem.
With 25m and 50m pools this is not a problem, since both of those pools are common (enough) and there are lots of competitions held in both of these pools. Also different pools are quite similar to each other.

I don't really see why having more world record disciplines would diminish their value. Having the 50m breaststroke WR in short course would be just as impressive to me, whether 1500m freestyle in long course was a discipline or not. Or if the value did actually diminish, maybe we should drop DNF as a discipline, since there is only around 10-20% difference in the results between DYN and DNF anyway. Same with CWT and CNF. Also what the heck is this FIM thing, it doesn't make any sense to me. And so on, until we don't have any more disciplines left, since they diminish the value of other sports' world records.

As I see it, separating 25m and 50m pool rankings could somewhat increase the popularity of pool competitions, that have 50m pool DNF or 25m pool DYN, by motivating the athletes to compete in different kind of pools. For the downsides, I don't see any.
 
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Completely agree with Mikko. Its just a matter of changing the ranking, nothing else.

AIDA rules is in dire need of updating on many points. But that´s a whole other story...
 
First of all organizers and judges would have to send all the data. Currently the situation is such that from most competitions no results come at all even after reclaiming them. And when they come, they are incomplete - missing AP's, nationalities, comments, penalties, so I see it really rather irrealistic that they would send some results at all if they had to add yet another data.

If you just want to see the reality, regardless whether it is official or not, just complete the data (pool lengths, bi-fins/monos) in the ranking at Apnea.cz. As I wrote, anyone can do it. And I can add fresh water/salt water parameter as well.
 
May be AIDA should add some small and easy updated swimming pools database which can be selected during competition announcement. Where are not too many of them, just 2-3 hundreds. But address and length will be available automatically. Most have website also.
Personally I hate when organizers give the name of the pool only without address. And when they question to the space "why nobody come from abroad?"
 
The problem is that big part of facilities have pools of both lenghts under the roof, or have a 50m pool with a retractable wall in the middle. So even if you know the parameters of the facility, you cannot be sure which length was used. Then there are often competitions where DYN is in 50m pool, and DNF in 25m, but there can be people who swim DNF during the DYN run, hence in a different length than others. Happened to me too. So in fact, to be sure, you need to have the length defined at every single performance.

Well, if the facility has only a 25m pool, then it is not a problem, of course, because you will not make a 50m from it easily even if you want.
 
I can't see any technical problem here. Define subpools as extra attribute or subclass of main pool name.
e.g.: Maribor.1 50m x 25m x 2-2,2m (one pool with different start side)
Maribor.2 25m x 50m x 2-2,2m
Aarhus.1 50m x 25m x 1.8 (one pool with wall in the middle)
Aarhus.2 25m x 25m x 1.8
Eindhoven.1 50m x 25m x 2.5m (three different subpools)
Eindhoven.2 50m x 12m x 1.8m
Eindhoven.3 25m x 25m x 6m
 
How will the database help you knowing which comnpetitor swam in which length? You need to know at each competition in which pool length it was done, and in case there were more than a single pool lengths used, you need then the pool length defined at every performance. Having a database of pools won't help at all, as long as there are more than a single possibility.
 
So we have the kind of financial backing and participation of competitive swimming now? It's a nice theory, but I think not.

The only 50m that used to let us compete now makes us hire the whole facility if we want 50m. For a weekend comp, it would cost less to fly to Europe and do an attempt there. So yes, it's possible. No, it won't happen unless they change their minds.

Why the mad rush to dilute the status of World Champion and World Record Holder further? We already have CMAS champions and are going to get SSI ones soon too. Is there a concern that someone might be left out?
 
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