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Freediving at Olympics ??????????

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.

glennv

hybrid lifeform
Nov 28, 2002
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What about this. Has been awefull quiet around this subject. The guys are in Spetses but no mention of the olympics.
Anyone ????

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Demonstration of Freediving held during 2004 Olympics
Thursday Jul 8, 2004 @ 23:11
Submitted by Cliff Etzel

If you've seen Luc Besson's movie classic THE BIG BLUE, then you will have an idea of what the sport of freediving is about.

On Saturday, the 21st of August, 2004 - Multiple World Record attempts will be made by International Freedivers on the Greek island of Spetses. The dive is a demonstration of the sport of Freediving as a part of the 2004 Olympic Games.

Divers will attempt depths as deep as 130 meters (429 feet) and return to the surface on a single breath of air.

World Champion freedivers such as Martin Stepanek of the Chez Republic and Fred Buyle of Belgium will demonstrate the sport by attempting to break existing world records in the CONSTANT WEIGHT and VARIABLE WEIGHT CATEGORIES.

Teams of safety divers and underwater camera operators will ensure the absolute safety of the divers as well as cover the event for the media.

The dives will be supervised by AIDA the sport's governing body.
 
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My understanding is that there is a record event in Greece, around the same time that the olympics are happening. I don't think there is any official or semi-official connection between the olympics and this event. In fact, I bet that the olympics organizers have no idea the freediving event is taking place (and they probably wouldn't care anyway).


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada
 
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So i don't have to book my trip yet for the next olympics CW competition in 4 years ??
 
Originally posted by glennv
So i don't have to book my trip yet for the next olympics CW competition in 4 years ??

A safe bet.

In fact you can probably skip the Olympics through the next 8 years as well. It's not a very interesting sport to watch unless you into it yourself. Those promoting chess have a similar problem.
 
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Maybe maybe. I think this big plasma screen from the Vancouver boys, if blown up to an olympic size stadium screen could be a cool spectator sport .
Also dynamic comps with 8 lanes at the same time would be great to watch. Lets skip the statics ;-)
 
Originally posted by Tommy Engfors
It's not a very interesting sport to watch unless you into it yourself. Those promoting chess have a similar problem.
And Judo and shooting and long distance running/cycling and javaline throwing etc. (and I bet there are more chess players than javaline throwers in the world).
I think the average watcher either watches for the sport he practices, or watches for nationalistic reasons ("hey, our guy is in the quarter finals, maybe he'll bring a medal home, pass the beer."). Maybe there are a few general sports who take more attections than others like football and basket ball because it's the most broadcasted sport in the world usally so every one can appriciate it. Or those 100m sprints (or swims) because they last 10 seconds and have a lot of media hu-ha around them.

I'm not sure that the olympics should only be defind by spectator's sport. It's also about advancing sport for sport (and peace on earth etc.).

Common now, how interesting would it be to watch a marathon?
maybe if there's a close tie on the last 200meters, but the previous 40+ km would've been a boring hell. Is that the reason it's an olympic sport?

I think more people would watch us freaks for curiousity without even knowing what apnea is than a marathon run. :)
And the samba/bo factor can even help, it's like some people want to see the formula 1 car crashes and other deadly "bloopers".

I'm just saying that it's not hopeless. And doing dynamic in lanes sounds like a really good start, and if presented right, and the next 4 years will have competitions with it, it might actually happen.
The companies that make all those swimsuits will also push for that I think. If there will be enough push from the people it is possible.
All I'm trying to say is: drop the "it's not a spec. sport" mantra please. :)
 
is anyone ACTUALLY promoting freediving to the IOC?

There was discussion at the AIDA Meeting in Vancouver about trying to get Dynamic in but I am not sure if anyone is actually doing anything about it.

There are issues about every Olympic city being able to provide a depth location for CW but no reason why the pool disciplines should not fit in that I can think of.

I mean - come on - synchronised board jumping, kayak slalom. PING PONG!!!

surely we can compete with those..

Sam
 
Ping Pong, gymnastics and even synchronized board jumping are 10 times more interesting to watch than someone holding his breath for 9 minutes.

I'd like to see freediving in the olympics because it is another example of people pushing themselves to the max in some aspect, but it's not that interesting to actually witness.
 
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Like i said before. Think bigger. Freediving is not only about statics. Think 8 lanes monofins , with underwater cameras following the action. Think big screen constant weight dives. This beats ping pong anyday anytime anywhere.
 
I personally think that dynamic is the only one which would stand a chance to be at the olympics. It is easy enough to see from the surface and most people can relate to how hard it can be to hold their breath underwater horizontally.

Static is deathly dull to watch. I'm interested in the sport and nearly fell asleep during the statics in Vancouver. Several spectators I spoke to at the pool just thought the divers were all nuts.

CB might be interesting but most people have no concept of how challenging it might be to swim down and up again holding your breath, especially to the depths we are currently at (100+m)

It would be nice to see FreeDiving in the olympics but I think it's going to be a long hard battle to get there and not everyone is going to be happy with the result if we finally do.
 
if dynamic gets into the olympics then it will probably be an underwater breath holding race, where there is virtually zero chance of samba/BO. freedivers could swim 50m without fins and up to 100m with fins (essentially finswimming).

i'm sure finswimming will be included eventually.

there is no way people will accept freedivers having sambas and BO in the olympics. people will find it far too shocking. it's just never going to happen! we're more likely to see ultimate fighting in the olympics!

interestingly, an underwater 60m swimming race was an olympic event during the 1900 Paris olympics. hardly anyone turned up to watch so they binned the event for the 1904 games...

i don't understand why people are so keen to get freediving into the olympics. to have it recognized as a mainstream sport?? it will never be a mainstream sport. it's far too 'extreme' for the olympics and general public consumption. there's no point trying to push a round peg into a square hole...
 
Say, is synchronized swimming an olympic sport?
If so, maybe we can claim there's already freediving foothold in the olympics. :)
 
DeepThought,

Alun makes a very valid point - we don't see synchronized swimmers doing LMC or BO in competition...

It is scary to watch if you don't understand the sport and i've seen people visibily shaken seeing a BO close up.
 
Originally posted by Alun
interestingly, an underwater 60m swimming race was an olympic event during the 1900 Paris olympics. hardly anyone turned up to watch so they binned the event for the 1904 games...
Interesting.

i don't understand why people are so keen to get freediving into the olympics. to have it recognized as a mainstream sport?? it will never be a mainstream sport. it's far too 'extreme' for the olympics and general public consumption. there's no point trying to push a round peg into a square hole...
Maybe we're all egoistic and wanna have a shot at an olympic medal? Or maybe we want recognition. Or maybe we want something interesting for a change to watch at the olympics. Or maybe because it's the only way some of us might ever see a competition since the olympics have a global media coverage...

You are one of those people that ask 'why' instead of 'how' 'ey? ;)
 
You are right, I was half kidding when I said that people might wanan watch it expecting to see sambas.

Alun also makes a valid point saying that there's zero chance of BO/LMC in dynamic sprints.
 
I'm with Alun. Posible LMC or BO = No chances of olympics.
So It may be restricted to U/W RACING for fixed distance. Another
factor to see this is that simultaneous dynamics are not spectacular (and heh, this is important) as long as the winner in distance could be the slowest in time
Statics could be made spectacular if made simultaneously and
on eliminatory phases, like eights, quarters, etc. Last minute of
last stages could be very exciting. But there would be BOs, so
the sport will be rejected.
 
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Been in the olympics isn't a ticket to the hall of fame.

Does anyone know who is the best team at this moment in Badmington?. It's an olympic sport
 
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U/W Hockey, maybe?

How about U/W Hockey? They could do it as a non-Olympic warmup to the Water Polo matches. Granted, they'd need underwater cameras, but at least it would introduce the public not only to UWH but to freediving as a whole. I mean, isn't there someone who's now competing in the AIDA Worlds that came to freediving via UWH?
 
i freedive 8 out of 12 months. there are comps like cyprus or vancouver and who knows what next. why does anyone feel the urge to give just another competition yet another name-tag?sorry, but i don't see any reason why i should jump on the 'make freediving olympic'-train.

personally i see no reason whatsoever to push the sport towards more publicity. i haven't read any argument pro publicity or pro olympics that i would want to support myself. maybe all those interested, but too far away from regular diving, some tv coverage might be interesting. but then again what's db for?

btw, i had a really good day diving today, and yesterday i found out that the olympics are on already.

and, no, i don't have any idea who's leading badminton.:D

cheers

roland

:cool:
 
You barely even need to make an effort to get a sport into the olympics. All you need to do is make the sport extremely popular on a world-wide scale, and then the sport will get itself into the olympics.

So, if we manage to develop freediving into a sport which is a 'household' name that everyone knows and many people do, then it would be no problem to get it into the olympics, even with samba/BO. However, Samba/BO might prevent us from making it popular world-wide in the first place.

If it requires a lot of convincing, etc., then it probably isn't popular enough anyway. The IOC has some sort of rule, where the sport must be practiced in 76 countries before it can be applied for inclusion in the olympics.


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada
 
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