Dynamic Comp Rules - Pulling

[BennyB]

The new rules have been around for about a year now, time to revisit and see how they are going in practice?

The pulling rule has seemed to have caught a few people up, and perhaps it's time to see how relevent it really is.

The rule states:
7.8.3
If the athlete pulls or propels him/herself on a support point (wall, line, bottom, etc.) before the exit of his/her mouth or nose, a penalty of 10 POINTS is applied.

Now, for a mid-performance pull this is clear cut to me, the athlete should not be pulling themselves along any surface of the pool. But at the end of the performance does a hand pulling an athlete to the edge of the pool really warrant a 10 point (20m) penalty?

The only advantage I can see is that the athlete gets an arm length at most, which is only around 1m, and in reality this is less as the athlete is grabbing the wall at the side, not in front.

It's my opinion that if an athlete, that is so close to LMC or BO needs to pull themselves up to the edge of the pool, then more often than not they will fail the 15sec surface protocol.

Some pools have edges, some use lane ropes, some have jets pushing athletes away from the wall, athletes wear heavy neckweights... all things to consider.

So... my questions:
Is this rule still necessary?
Should the rule be amended to apply to pulling during mid-performance only?
If the rule stays, should the penalty be reduced?

What are people's thoughts?

Cheers,
Ben

 

[Jorg]

from other thread...

I guess these people have many other excuses to save own face. And 25m DYN is good example of hard training. I can't see any problem with a current rules. :rcard

Probably... but the people I know stopped competing because of these kind of small, for them, strange rules. And probably even more important; the small audience that comes to a freediving competition just don't understand why someone gets an yellow or red card. It's just to complicated for other people then freedivers to understand.

 

[martin_gk]

It is even too complicated for me. Whenever I go to a competition, I am afrait that some rule has been changed that I dont know of since I did not read the hole thing again.

Sebastian made me shiver when he sad "It is the athlets responsibillity to know the rules. The latest rules!" Unfortunatelly we are not in a sport like footbaal where rule last for at least a decade before they undergo changes and that could drive people away from competing. True for me anyways...

 

[perow1]

Sebastian made me shiver when he sad "It is the athlets responsibillity to know the rules. The latest rules!" Unfortunatelly we are not in a sport like footbaal where rule last for at least a decade before they undergo changes and that could drive people away from competing. True for me anyways...

I agree totally that it is the athletes responsibility to know the rules. The current AIDA rules are short and quick to read and it does not take a genious to understand them.

The pulling rule isn´t that hard to follow. Just do every training that way and it becomes natural.

 

[Billextreme]

The rules are the same for everyone.

This rule is there because not everyone is competing on a lane close to the wall, or on a lane with good lines that will support in the right way when you grab one. We need to have rules that will be as close as possible to be the same for every athlete in what ever pool they compete in.

And with this rule we also have the same difficulties for the persons ending in the middle of a lap – surface first and then support yourself on the line, a floating board or the wall (if there is one)

For me this is a basic rule and should still be in the set of our AIDA Rules.
I could maybe agree that we maybe could adjust the penalty level, but normally an athlete only do this mistake once.

There is no DQ for grabbing(or pulling you up to early) only penalty.

/B

 

[martin_gk]

I know that the rules are the same for everyone (that is because they are rules) and I know that it is my responsibillity to know them.

But the constant change the are undergoing is leaving a lot of people with an subliminal uncertainness.

Means when the head judge tells me I am suposed to know that little man in the back of my head goes "***** you should have read them again yesterday!"

It is also difficult for me to tell a newbi what to do and what not to cauz after 25min of speach their eys role over and they go "anything else?"

Also, Bill, if you'd wait untill you've done every mistake once you are loosing a hell lot of points and probably the fun of competing is gone and that is not in AIDAs interest.

 

[Kars]

I find it strange that in Static one is allowed to pull oneself up out of the water, and not in Dynamic?
- The benefit one could gain is negligible. (with only 1 grab)
- Grabbing is a very natural thing to do.

Pulling in the Discipline CW, CW-NF should be limited to grabbing the line above the surfacemarking, following the same logic.

It's nice to know that judges and boardmembers take our questions, thoughts and experiences serious.

Thanks,

Kars.

 

[laminar]

I always thought the pulling rule was a little too much.

In my opinion, rules should serve to a) ensure safety during an event and b) create fairness.

The pulling rule in the context of (a) does not increase safety, it actually decreases it. Sometimes you need to grab on to something to secure your airway above water. Granted, if nothing's available you should be able to support your airway above the surface alone (although given current AIDA rules and practices there is supposed to be some kind of flotation or firm object to hang onto after static,dynamic or constant weight).

As far as fairness goes, I really fail to see how the advantages gained by pulling yourself along the bottom or with the pool edge makes things unfair for others. There is a natural disincentive to usiing the pool bottom or edge for propulsion and that is because it is really hard to do (over a long distance). I don't think we'll see any dynamic world records made by crawling on the bottom of the pool (or I could be wrong :duh )

Since the distance of the dynamic is measured from where the airway surfaces and not the hand, I also see no need to penalize people for grabbing a lane marker or pool edge when coming up. In fact, I would encourage it for safety. I always see it as difficult for competitors to program their hands to grasp a flotation aid milliseconds after they surface when their natural instinct is to find a way to be safe and keep their airway above water.

On the other thread, someone mentioned losing points from surfacing during dynamic apnea. In my mind that is also a silly rule. Yes, it is an underwater event with apnea. But the athlete only loses distance on the surface as we all know that drag is much, much higher on the surface vs. underwater. So they are penalizing themselves anyway. No need to add insult to injury. If someone, a beginner for example, wants to attempt a dynamic with some portion of it face down on the surface of the water in order to feel safer or more comfortable, we should let them. High performance freedivers will be underwater. I think it is unfortunate when a competitor loses points because their heels momentarily break the surface of the water - so what! :duh That's their own fault for not managing their buoyancy better.


Yes, it is the athlete's responsibility to know the rules. But it is IMHO the responsibility of athletes, coaches, judges, AIDA members, AIDA chapter members to influence the development of rules in a democratic way so that they are conducive to exciting and rewarding competitions for both athletes and spectators.

Yes, I fully agree with KISSS:

Keep
It
Safe
and
Simple
Stupid
(and Fun)

 

[cebaztian]

As mentioned in the BERLIN THREAD: I believe the "Pull (or grab) rule" should be taken out when it comes to surfacing part of the perfomance. The only arguments for keeping it have come from Bill, and I find them valid, but not enough (and "the rules are the same for all" is not an argument).

Sebastian

 

[osusim]

Well, all elements of SP are not natural for humans. All swimmers have got habit to exhale with lips underwater. Never the less we brake this stereotype in own mind. Mostly the following of the SP is just a test how much your brain adequate at the moment. IMHO the pulling rule is just part of it.

 

[wolleneugebauer]

Sorry, but I will teach my friends and myself to grab the wall furthermore. Ok, in this case I risk -10pt (or -20m) alltimes...
But this is one part only, the other is the safty. This kind of surfacing is definitely more saver and this is important first.

I go to the competitions to have fun. First of all I perform for myself, after I do this for the official results.
The most of the judges are my friends. I dont like to have personally stress because the judgement. They do their job with the current rules and I have to respect this.
I have to criticize the rules for the future only. I will do this in this case.

 

[naiad]

In my opinion, rules should serve to a) ensure safety during an event and b) create fairness.

The pulling rule in the context of (a) does not increase safety, it actually decreases it. Sometimes you need to grab on to something to secure your airway above water. Granted, if nothing's available you should be able to support your airway above the surface alone (although given current AIDA rules and practices there is supposed to be some kind of flotation or firm object to hang onto after static,dynamic or constant weight).

As far as fairness goes, I really fail to see how the advantages gained by pulling yourself along the bottom or with the pool edge makes things unfair for others. There is a natural disincentive to usiing the pool bottom or edge for propulsion and that is because it is really hard to do (over a long distance). I don't think we'll see any dynamic world records made by crawling on the bottom of the pool (or I could be wrong :duh )

Since the distance of the dynamic is measured from where the airway surfaces and not the hand, I also see no need to penalize people for grabbing a lane marker or pool edge when coming up. In fact, I would encourage it for safety. I always see it as difficult for competitors to program their hands to grasp a flotation aid milliseconds after they surface when their natural instinct is to find a way to be safe and keep their airway above water.

On the other thread, someone mentioned losing points from surfacing during dynamic apnea. In my mind that is also a silly rule. Yes, it is an underwater event with apnea. But the athlete only loses distance on the surface as we all know that drag is much, much higher on the surface vs. underwater. So they are penalizing themselves anyway. No need to add insult to injury. If someone, a beginner for example, wants to attempt a dynamic with some portion of it face down on the surface of the water in order to feel safer or more comfortable, we should let them. High performance freedivers will be underwater. I think it is unfortunate when a competitor loses points because their heels momentarily break the surface of the water - so what! :duh That's their own fault for not managing their buoyancy better.

I agree. I feel safer grabbing the side of the pool, and I don't really see what is wrong with it. The distance gained by pulling is very small, unless someone has arms several metres long.

I also think it is safer, because it is the most energy-efficient way of surfacing, at least that I have found.

Also, some competitors use heavy weights for dynamic, particularly neckweights, so they may have very little positive buoyancy.

Lucia

 

[jome]

I guess the rule is there because if there are starts on several lanes of a pool then the divers on the middle lanes (only rope) are in an unfair situation.

But I agree that in terms of safety, it would be better to allow pulling/grabbing. The "unfairness" could be handled in a different way, for example starting only on the middle lanes. But I guess they tried it in Renens 2005 (adding a rope before the ledge) and that didn't work too well, Tom got DQd for that.

Anyway, I believe the circumstances should be equal for everyone. Of course it is not always possible to affect things like weather etc. But I'm a bit uncertain if this rule actually helps that much...But I don't see it as a huge problem either.

While we're discussing, I voted for the removal of the verbal ok from the SP. It should be replaced with something else or at least for open water discips be just removed. The first thing a surfacing diver should do is breathe, not try to speak. Just my opinnion, but I feel this compromises safety quite a bit...

 

[wolleneugebauer]

I guess the rule is there because if there are starts on several lanes of a pool then the divers on the middle lanes (only rope) are in an unfair situation.

this situation was in the worlds2005 only. in this case it was prohibited to touch the wall on the side before the judgement was finished (tom sietas was disqualified the only one). It was ok and it was fair.

the extra line you can see in the attached fotos.

 

[Billextreme]

I will just insist that the rules are the same for all.

If Wolle have a safetyproblem to surface without the grabbing before, maybe it would be wise to come up little earlier. Only swim as far you know you still can surface before grabbing anything.

/B

 

[trux]

What about installing electric fences at the pool edge? That might help efficiently.

 

[josedesucre]

I think Cebastian has a very valid point: "same for all" is not an argument.
Why not discuss the logic, or the reasons, for the rule?
The objective is fairnes, but if judges can distinguish the fraction of a second between the moment when the hand touches the wall, or the line, and when the mouth emerges from the water, surely they can also notice if the diver takes advantage to move a little forward. In this case, they can penalize or deduct an appropriate distance, half a meter or even one meter, but not 20 meters. Twenty meters is not only ridiculous, it is mean.

 

[trux]

Well, the distance between the top of the head and the palm is about 30cm, maybe a few cm more at tall persons, and while the freediver usually surfaces rather vertically or diagonally, the distance he/she can gain is maximally a very few centimeters. This is far below the tolerance of distance measurement during the competitions, so it won't be a problem. The problem, as Bill wrote, is in the fact that competitors should have the same conditions in all competitions, regardless of the lane or pool they compete at. When you are in a middle lane, you may decide to surface earlier (consciously or not) than you would in a side lane, just because you miss the support.

While it is hard to estimate the psychological impact of the missing support, I understand that such a sever penalization was chosen - rather than compensation, it was meant as a deterrent. However, in this way the exact opposite of the desired effect (same conditions for all) was achieved. Before, performing in the middle lane might have a slight disadvantage in the missing support, but now there is a huge disadvantage to compete in the side line - just because grabbing the edge is rather an automatic reflex. Now it is much easier to compete in the middle lane (no side jets, no psychological stress due to the need to hold on the edge, ..).

So I think the best would be a rule excluding side lanes from competitions entirely, otherwise we cannot have equal conditions for all. Or, at least, each freediver should have the right to refuse performing in the side (or middle) lane.

 

[martin_gk]

Is there any diving in the middle lanes in competition anywhere?

I have not seen any and from a safety and judgment point of view I would not recodment it to anyone trying to organize an event like that. Safety is too far from the pool edge and judging someone that is ony 2m away from you must be much easier then one who is over at the other lane.

But that would belong in the other threat, of course.

 

[trux]

Is there any diving in the middle lanes in competition anywhere?

There sure are. And if there were none, there would be no reason for creating this rule, because the conditions would already be equal for all.